Focussed on expanding green transmission corridor, says Goyal

Cheni, July 15: Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said expanding the Green Corridor (a power transmission corridor for renewable power) is the central government mission and the per unit cost of solar power is now comparable with that of traditiol power sources. Queried about Tamil du Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa’s request to Prime Minister rendra Modi for dedicated transmission capacity for wind power, Goyal said: “Expanding the Green Corridor is the mission of our government.”

Recently Jayalalithaa had written to Modi to direct Power Grid Corporation to allocate dedicated transmission capacity to evacuate surplus wind power from the state. She had stressed the importance setting up a dedicated inter-State Green Energy Corridor so that the surplus wind energy from Tamil du can be successfully evacuated and sold to other States.

Goyal, who also handles the coal, new and renewable energy portfolios independently, said he had fruitful discussions with the Kartaka government on expanding the transmission capacity in South India.

He said that the rendra Modi government has brought the cost of solar power to around Rs 4 per unit which is at par with that of other traditiol sources of power, and the days when renewable power was unviable are gone. (ians)