Minister bats for green energy projects

Bengaluru, Jan 30, 2015, DHNS:,

Jan 31 2015, 00:40 ist
updated: Jan 31 2015, 01:07 ist

Energy Minister D K Shivakumar on Friday said the coming summer could be tough for the State as coal mining licences cancelled last September by the apex court will be enforced from March 31.

“The government will have to reorganise the entire process of allotments,” he said in his address at the curtain raiser of the Green Summit-2015 to be organised by FKCCI from April 23-25.

Referring to the ending of validity of coal licences as per the orders of the Supreme Court, the minister said the next four-five months will be tough and crucial as far as availability of coal is concerned. He said the government might not consider any thermal power projects in the future. “In my opinion, thermal power is a thing of the past and the whole world is looking at green energy or renewable energy resources.”

Pinning hopes on renewable energy, the minister hinted that solar power was the way forward. “The cost of production for solar power generation has dropped from Rs 20 crore per MW a few years ago to Rs 6.5 crore per MW now. We plan to add 1,000 MW of solar power out of which 500 MW has been finalised,” he said.

Solar power

Additionally, the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited is also looking for land from farmers which can be leased in order to produce solar power. “We still need to educate people properly about the economics of rooftop solar. We have initiated steps like deemed conversion and relaxed floor area ratio for solar rooftop generation,” he said.

The minister, who was scheduled to visit Kodagu on Saturday regarding setting up transmission lines Bengaluru- Mysuru- Kodagu, said he would skip the visit.