Piyush Goyal to receive Carnot prize for power reforms, rural electrification

Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal will receive the Carnot prize for his contribution towards sustainable energy solutions, with a team from University of Pennsylvania coming here to felicitate him on January 30.

The former power minister, who was to be awarded the prize by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design in October last year, had to skip the event because of the Amritsar tragedy in which over 60 people died after being mowed down by a train.

The award recognises Goyal's tenure as minister of power in which he is credited to have "reformed" the electricity sector and extended access to electricity to 18,000 villages, as documented by the International Energy Agency.

"Now as Minister of Coal and Railways, the Minster is courageously confronting the complexity of ending energy poverty while transitioning to clean energy," the president of the centre said in his message.

"His work challenges all of us to consider what values justify the slow rate of U.S. transition to clean energy. We live in a world of common but differentiated responsibilities as we work to mitigate the energy system's impacts on the climate commons," the message added.