EESI to Promote Energy Efficiency Project: Shinde

The Ministry of Power is promoting a company called Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) for implementation of energy efficiency in India. This was announced by Union Power Minister ,Shri Sushilkumar Shinde ,at the Economic Editors’ Conference in New Delhi today. The Company will promote energy efficiency projects like Bachat Lamp Yojana, Agricultural Demand Side Management and Municipal Demand Side Management. It will also act as a Resource Centre for capacity building of State Development Agencies, Utilities, financial institutions, etc.

The Minister pointed out that the overall size of energy investment market under Energy Service Companies (ESCO) in India is Rs. 74,000 crores and till now, only 5% of the market has been tapped. India has huge potential for energy efficiency. An improvement of 20% energy efficiency can result in avoided capacity addition of around 30,000 MW which amounts to an avoided investment of Rs. 1,20,000 crores.

Shri Shinde informed that the equity of EESL will be Rs. 190 crores with equal contributions from NTPC, PFC, REC and Powergrid. With the equity base of Rs. 190 crores, the company would be able to leverage a total investment of Rs. 700-800 crores. There are very few such companies in the world, he added.

Minister of State for Power , Shri. Bharatsinh Solanki, was present on the occasion. The other dignitaries on the dais were Shri Rakesh Nath, Chairman, CEA and the two additional secretaries, Shri Anil KumarAnil Kumar and Shri G.B.Pradhan. The session was also attended by heads of CPSUs and senior officials of the Ministry.

Interacting with the mediapersons Shri Shinde said that compared to the last three plan periods, the capacity addition programme in the current plan is progressing well. He said that already 18235 MW has been commissioned till 21.10.2009. It is expected that total capacity of 62,374 MW is likely with a high level of certainty. In addition a capacity of 12590 MW may materialize on best effort basis during the 11th Plan.

On RGGVY, the Minister informed that 65,434 villages have been electrified and electricity connections released to 75.9 lakh BPL households. He expressed confidence that his Ministry will be able to achieve the target of electrifying 1.18 lakh villages and providing free electricity connections to 2.46 Crore rural BPL households by March 2012.

Shri Shinde said that under the Re-structured APDRP, 1130 projects at the cost of Rs 4183.93 crore have been approved to eighteen states including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. So far Rs 1093.57 Crore has been released under the R-APDRP, out of which Rs 1068.57 Crore is the loan to PFC to disburse the same tp utilities and Rs 25.00 Crore is grant to PFC as rolling advance against fee to the nodal agency.

The Minister also announced that he has convened a meeting of Power Ministers of all States and UTs. The meeting, second in this year, is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on 15th of November 2009.It will discuss several issues related to power sector. (EOM)