Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable energy, Piyush Goyal visited the UK on 19-20 April, to strengthen India-UK collaboration on power and renewable energy, building up on the agreements made during visit of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to the UK in November 2015.
The Minister was accompanied by an official delegation which included Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Joint Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Director (technical), IREDA and nine member business delegation.
On the first day of the visit, the Minister met officials from Natgrid and UK Power Network who briefed the Minister about their functions and capabilities and on how they can contribute on enhancing grid stability in India. The Minister explained about his plans and vision to increase the power generation in India and renewable energy scale up plan has been drawn up to 2022.
Goyal also met Lord Bourne, UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change and discussed about enhancing future cooperation between India and UK in the Energy Sector.
The Minister also met Lord Jim O’Neill, Commerce Secretary to the Treasury and Mr. Nick Hurd, Minister, Department of International Development and discussed about enhancing bilateral relationship particularly in the power sector.
He eMphasised the need for the developed world to show its commitment towards climate change by putting money in climate finance. He mentioned that India needs low cost long term finance for its ambitious renewable energy scale up plans and finance hubs like London could take a front seat in mobilising it.
Goyal also emphasised on the historical, cultural and financial ties between India and the UK and hoped to work on it expeditiously to strengthen and deepen the bilateral engagement.
The Minister met the media during the visit and briefed about steps the Indian Government is undertaking to improve energy access, rapid scale up of renewable energy, enhancing grid reliability, integration of renewables in the grid and the massive opportunity presented by the untapped demand in the Indian Market.
