Coimbatore: Amid the raging row on the
Koodankulan nuclear plant, Minister for New and Renewable
Energy Farooq Abdullah on Sunday stressed the need for nuclear
energy and said the country ought to have all types of power.
"India has to have all types of power, has to have fossil
fuel or Nuclear power," he said.
Though Germany has planned to phase out nuclear power by
2017, India cannot afford it and there was the need to have
nuclear power, he said.
The KNPP in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district has run
into trouble following protests from anti-nuclear activists
and locals who want the project to be scrapped citing safety
concerns.
Farooq said a lot of complaints were received from wind
power producers that there were large amount of arrears from
the State Governments for their supply, due to which they were
not able to pay banks.
Since there were no adequate transmission lines, the
producers could not evacuate the wind power, losing the grid
connectivity, Abdullah told reporters on the sidelines of
inauguration of R and D Wing at Park College of Engineering
and Technology, at Kaniyur, 25 km from here.
Considering this the ministry would either ask the Centre
to assist the State by providing funds to create enough
transmission lines to absorb the generated wind power or to
"cut at sources" so that Centre can make direct payment to the
producers.
Stating that wind producers in Tamil Nadu also were to
receive arrears from the State Government, Abdullah said the
ministry would consult the State government in this regard.
Later launching new G97-2 MW Wind turbine manufactured by
Gamesa in the city, Abdullah said India is in the fifth
position in wind power production with 17,000 MW and should
become number one in the World.
Asking the companies to go for extensive research to
bring in new technologies, the minister said research was
going on to generate power from tidal wave.
PTI
First Published: Monday, February 06, 2012, 00:22