India will play a leadership role in the area of renewable energy in the years to come, says Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs & Food & Public Distribution, and Textiles addressing the Valedictory Session of the 2nd edition of "Aatmanirbhar Bharat - Self-Reliance for Renewable Energy manufacturing”.

Dwelling upon the progress made in the country, Goyal said, "From hydropower in the initial stages, we are already looking at the future and have started engaging in hydrogen technologies. A Hydrogen Energy Mission in 2021-22 for generating hydrogen from green power sources has been launched."

He said, "LED Mission was another success story led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. LED Lights have saved the country billions of dollars in electricity bills. As a nation, it brought down our carbon emissions by over 120 million tonnes every year." 

Goyal said that we will encourage automobile users of electric cars to recharge their batteries using renewable energy or solar energy during day hours, for which we are looking at a big rollout of charging stations across gas stations in the country.

He said that battery technologies are going to be very important for our sustainability mission and for renewable energy to progress more, and we are investing heavily on batteries now.

The Minister said that by 2023-24, India is going to be 20% blending ethanol in our petrol products.

He said that our ultimate target is to also have vehicles which can take up to 100% ethanol.

“Our idea is to make India conscious of its electricity needs being met in a more sustainable fashion and balancing the cost of electricity in such a manner that our developmental goals do not get affected. From an overall renewable energy target of 175 GW by 2022, India is now looking at 450 GW by 2030,” commented Goyal.