Coal India to generate 1 GW clean energy this fiscal: Goyal

State miner Coal India (CIL) will generate one gigawatt (GW) power from renewable energy during the current fiscal as part of its plan to produce around 10 GW power overall from renewables, Union Coal, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

"This is a contribution towards a better planet, towards greening the country and greening the world," Goyal said, while releasing the first part of a report 'Pathways to Integrate 175 Gigawatts of Renewable Energy into India's Electricity Grid' at an event here.

"It is a little bit of a contradiction that I have to keep the coal industry also going while I ensure large-scale outreach in the renewable sector," he said.

"Certainly, in the long run renewable energy will be far cheaper than thermal power," he added.

The government has set target of achieving 175 GW renewable energy generation capacity by 2022.

The report has been developed under the US-India bilateral programme called "Greening the Grid".

"It is time for the people of India to get ready and embrace the change with a new mindset of a new grid for a new India, which is ready to integrate large amount of renewable energy," Goyal said.

--IANS

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