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Scindia powers Indo-German economic ties to new heights

Minister of State for Power (Independent Charge) Jyotiraditya Scindia has led a high-level delegation to Berlin, Germany. The visit is a follow-up to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Berlin visit from 10 to 12 April for the 2nd round of Inter-Governmental Consultations between India and Germany.

Cooperation in power and renewable energy were one of the key areas of discussion between Singh and Chancellor Merkel, with both Governments highlighting this as a vital sector for ongoing and enhanced cooperation. The focus of the Scindia's visit was to obtain a first-hand perspective of the overall energy situation in Germany and the efforts being made for a dramatic shift towards renewable energy under the `Energiewende’ programme.

Germany has set ambitious targets of producing 50 per cent of its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.  

The progress made in developing renewable energy through onshore and offshore wind, solar and bio-mass in the last decade has been impressive and Germany is well on its way to meeting its targets.

The country that boasts the European Union's largest economy has developed `smart grids’ to integrate its growing share of renewable energy into the national grid and also significantly reduced carbon dioxide emissions by developing advanced gas turbines and tri-generation plants (for heating as well as cooling).

Scindia visited state-of-the-art facilities at Berlin, such as the Smart Grid Energy Management Centre of VattenFall, one of Germany's largest four power distribution companies, the office of 50 Hertz, a company which manages about  20 per cent of Germany’s energy supply and integrates conventional and renewable energy sources smoothly to prevent fluctuations, and a modern combined heat & power (CHP) trigeneration plant, which maximises energy efficiency.

He had detailed discussions with German Minister of State for Economic Cooperation & Development Gudrun Kopp on implementation of the Joint Declaration of Intent on Establishment of Green Energy Corridors signed during the Prime Minister's visit.

The Green Energy Corridors will enable evacuation of over 30,000 mw of renewable energy generated from wind and solar power during the 12th Five-Year Plan in India into the national grid, for which Germany has committed to provide developmental and technical assistance of 1 billion euros.  Detailed discussions were held on the early finalisation of the Green Energy Corridors and its
 implementation.
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