Piyush Goyal hopeful of India's target to blend 20% ethanol with petrol by 2023-24

Union Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday that India will achieve the target of blending 20% ethanol with petrol by 2023-24. The minister addressed at the second valedictory session of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-reliant India) for Renewable Energy Manufacturing. In addition, Piyush Goyal also stated that the ultimate target of India is also to have vehicles that can be run with 100% ethanol in the future.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal said, "Our idea is to make India concious of its electricity needs being met in a more sustainable fashion and balancing the cost of electricity in such a manner that our developmental goals do not get affected. From an overall renewable energy target of 175 gigawatts by 2022, India is now looking at 450 GW by 2030."

The use of battery, hydrogen, and LED technologies

Piyush Goyal further said that the government will encourage automobile users of electric cars to recharge their batteries with the help of renewable energy or solar energy during day hours. The government is also looking at a big development of charging stations across different gas stations in the country. Specifically, he laid focus on the use of battery technologies for India's Sustainability Mission. 

He said, "We are fully confident that India will play a leadership role in the area of renewable energy in the years to come."

The minister also counted on the progress made by the country in renewable energy so far. He said that the government is also looking for introducing Hydrogen technologies in the country. The Hydro-power technology is already in the initial stages and will be introduced in the future. A Hydrogen Energy Mission 2021-22 has already been launched for generating hydrogen from green power sources. Piyush Goyal also talked about LED Technologies and its mission. 

He said, "LED lights have saved the country billions of dollars in electricity bills.  As a nation, it brought down our carbon emissions by over 120 million tonnes every year. We were able to bring scale and rapidly roll it out all over the country."

Previous developments of India in renewable energy

Goyal said that several decades ago, India was one of the initial countries to promote the hydro generation of power. In 1897, the first small hydropower plant started functioning in Darjeeling. With regards to the development of water and electric power, Baba Saheb Ambedkar laid the foundation of the All-India policy to promote hydropower plants. Then, India moved on to wind energy. Earlier, India used to import Wind equipment, but as the numbers went up, it became one of the biggest manufacturers of wind equipment. After hydro and wind energy, India jumped on Solar energy. India consciously decided to go for high volumes of renewable energy, which gradually led to the manufacturing of equipment in India.

Goyal said, "As the import component kept reducing, the prices were brought down significantly. Because of the huge scale, we were able to get the world's best companies to invest in India and to get competitive price."

Further, he added, "For us enviromental care is because it is intristic to every Indian. Our culture, our traditional practices, our way of living reflects this conciousness. Waste in unacceptable to Indian households and the concept of recyling and reusing comes naturally to an Indian family."

(IMAGE: ANI)