Energy Minister bats for zero dependence on fossil fuel imports for Aatmanirbhar Bharat

India needs to have zero dependence on fossil fuel imports for becoming truly Aatmanirbhar, Power and Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh said on Tuesday. Once renewable energy and balancing power become cost-effective, India will become independent from thermal electricity and fossil fuel, he added.

In his address at CII Digital Conference on Aatmanirbhar Bharat on Renewable Energy Manufacturing, RK Singh said India is exploring other options such as round-the clock grid energy, balance by thermal, balance by hydro etc. He said the objective is to increase demand for storage and reduce prices.

In order to bring down the price of renewable energy, storage has to be feasible, pumped hydrogen for transportation, in-house manufacturing to kickstart and battery to become cheaper, the Minister suggested. For measuring the practical cost-effectiveness of these options, a city-wise segregated approach for launch of hydrogen and batteries will be undertaken, RK Singh said.

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Focus on boosting domestic manufacturing

The Energy Minister also promoted the "Top-Runner program" in manufacturing higher-efficiency solar products which also helped China in achieving mass-production of n-type cells.

While expressing optimism for domestic manufacturing in the renewable energy sector, RK Singh also noted the ongoing challenges that the government is facing to solve payment security of the entire value chain, sanctity of contracts, land acquisition and regulatory issues.

While manufacturing in the wind sector is mainly indigenous, 80-90 per cent of the components in solar sector are imported. This is partly because of India's limited in-house capability to manufacture, and also because some of the countries have been dumping components. This has compelled the government to impose anti-dumping and import duties on other nations.

In the days to come, the Energy Minister assured that these duties will be made stronger, thus making imports difficult to boost domestic manufacturing.

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(Image credits: PTI)