{"id":4506,"date":"2018-07-06T13:10:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T07:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/blog\/?p=4506"},"modified":"2018-07-06T13:10:58","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T07:40:58","slug":"energy-ministers-discuss-hydro-power-revival-at-the-bi-annual-state-power-ministers-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/energy-ministers-discuss-hydro-power-revival-at-the-bi-annual-state-power-ministers-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy Ministers discuss hydro power revival at the bi-annual state power ministers&#039; conference"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently at a Pan-India biannual energy ministers meet in Simla, the water scarcity of Simla and woes of power sector were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/economy-policy\/energy-ministers-meet-hydro-power-revival-back-on-discussion-table-118070300953_1.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">discussed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The host state Simla suggested immediate and long-term reforms in the hydro power sector. Himachal Pradesh\u2019s Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur requested the government to give hydropower similar status as solar power.<\/span><br \/>\n<i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor years, the people of Himachal have given their land and labor for the growth of hydro power in the state. They have not been duly compensated till yet even after giving up their river catchment areas and natural resources. The pain of displacement from their ancestral land still exists. We urge the Central agencies to expedite the compensation,\u201d &#8211; Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh.<\/span><\/i><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He further suggested that <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201chydro sector needs \u2018Hydro Purchase Obligation\u201d for assured take-off of power, medium term sale of hydro power, giving renewable status to hydro is the need of the hour and we urge the Centre to look into these demand.\u201d<\/span><\/i><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other developments, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/powermin.nic.in\/sites\/default\/files\/webform\/notices\/Proposed_amendments_in_Tariff_Policy_0.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">draft amendments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the National Tariff Policy 2018 also has a clause suggesting exclusion of Hydro Power and \u201cwaste heat gases as a byproduct of industrial process\u201d from RPO calculation. The draft NTP proposes to change the basis of calculation of RPO. It states that consumption from hydropower and from \u201cwaste heat gases as a byproduct of industrial process\u201d shall be deducted to calculate RPO. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further the Union Minister RK Singh suggested of a new hydro policy in the pipeline and said that<em> &#8220;All advanced countries are exhausting their hydro capacity. In the past few years, hydro projects have been stalled because of that (protests) and geological challenges. The hydro power (delay in commissioning of projects) then becomes costly.&#8221; <\/em><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new policy is supposed to have points like:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To bring down the capital cost of hydro power projects<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To discontinue mandatory sale of free power for 10-12 years so that the developers can recover the cost<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To provide soft loans no longer than 30 years<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All these points are in turn supposed to reduce the cost of hydropower projects.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shimla hosted close to 18 state power ministers, 29 senior officials from 26 states at the conference. Currently, Shimla is facing a major water scarcity and the tourism is also affected due to this. Hydropower and tourism are two major revenue generation activities in the state.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently at a Pan-India biannual energy ministers meet in Simla, the water scarcity of Simla and woes of power sector were discussed. The host state Simla suggested immediate and long-term reforms in the hydro power sector. Himachal Pradesh\u2019s Chief Minister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[195,842,68],"tags":[863,231,864,865,866],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reconnectenergy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}