The Green Energy Corridor is an initiative by the Government of India to strengthen the country’s power sector by incorporating the Renewable sources of energy. In the pursuit of fulfilling the upcoming demand in the power sector of India, GOI has taken the step.

 

The electricity sector in India had an installed capacity of 225.133 GW as of May 2013 the world's fifth largest. Whereas the captive power plant generated 34.444 GW, out of which Non Renewable and Renewable Power Plants constitute 87.55% and 12.45% of the installed capacity respectively. 

 

Over two-thirds of the installed power plant capacity in India is from fossil fuels, especially coal. At the same time demand for electricity in India surpasses production by about 10% and together with the rapid economic growth of the country by 7-9% annually, the current consumption increases steadily to about the same extent.

 

India currently suffers from a major shortage of electricity generation capacity; even though it is the world's fourth largest energy consumer after United States, China and Russia. 

 

Till the end of March 2012, grid-connected electricity generation capacity, which was installed from Renewable Energy (RE) sources, was about 25 GW in India.

 

India has a separate Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) with a policy for deploying significant share of green (renewable) energy in the national power mix. 

 

The current ambitious plan of the Indian government is to build the construction of new grid-connected mechanism generating capacity from RE sources of around 41 GW by 2017. 

 

The majority of large scale renewable energy potential lies in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

 

The rising capacities of RE power in India require the expansion and strengthening of the network infrastructure at both intra and inter State level. In this regard the integration and evacuation of RE into the respective national grids plays a pivotal role with major technological and fiscal challenges.

 

 Because of the fluctuating nature of solar and wind energy resources the electricity yield from renewable energy plants creates additional complexity to manage the power grid. In order to create an appropriate infrastructure for accommodating such large share of RE into power grid in the future, government of India has taken an initiative i.e. Green Energy Corridor.

 

Ministry of Power and MNRE are addressing the initiative jointly. PGCIL (Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd.) has estimated approx 6 billion Euros will be required to implement the project. Pertaining to this, a joint Declaration of Intent is signed on the occasion of the second Indo-German Government Consultations in Berlin, Germany on 11th April 2013 in the presence of Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, and Dr. Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

 

Aiming to expand their bilateral development cooperation in the field of renewable energy both Governments express their intention to foster the increased use of renewable energy in India through technical as well as financial cooperation. 

 

Germany has expressed its willingness to contribute around 1 billion Euros for this. Germany may provide technical support to India in the domain of forecasting, balancing, market design and network management under GEC.

 

GEC is aimed at improving grid integration of RE in India in the next 5 years. And therefore contributing to harness and utilize green energy optimally for our country. With this initiative our country is going to be self reliant in terms of power generation for its vast population.

 

Stay informed, Stay ahead and stay inspired with MBA Rendezvous