Ministry of Power of Republic of India : Shri Piyush Goyal Meets Leading Japanese Financial Institutions and Business Houses; Appreciates Role Played by Various Japanese Financial Institutions in India’s Infrastructure Sector

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Power
14-January-2016 19:18 IST

Shri Piyush Goyal Meets Leading Japanese Financial Institutions and Business Houses; Appreciates Role Played by Various Japanese Financial Institutions in India's Infrastructure Sector

Shri Piyush Goyal Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy had a series of meetings with leading Japanese financial institutions and business houses, after the roundtable sessions, in the Tokyo , Japan today . Some of the leading financial institutions which the Minister interacted were Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mizuho Bank, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UGF, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Nippon Export & Insurance Investment and Japan Bank of International Cooperation. During the interactions, Shri Goyal appreciated the role played by the various Japanese financial institutions in India's infrastructure sector such as Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), support to the power generation and transmission sector in India and in the renewable energy sphere. Leading Japanese companies associated with the energy sector in India, Sumitomo Corporation, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Hitachi, JPOWER and Toshiba also met the Minister. The Minister apprised the companies of the vast opportunities in the energy sector, which could be harnessed by the Japanese companies. Further, he also elaborated the steps taken by the Government of India to improve the ease of doing business. He emphasized upon creation of win-win partnership through a collaboration of Japanese technologies and low cost long tenure finance with India's high skilled manpower and huge potential market as a future game changer.

Shri Goyal also met Chief Cabinet Secretary Mr. Yoshihide Suga, wherein both the leaders recalled with fondness the successful visit of the H.E. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in December 2015.In the field of energy, the collaboration between high efficiency coal fired thermal power generation technologies of Japan with the thermal power plants was discussed. The leaders also underlined the special and strategic bonds between the two countries. Minister also met with Mr. Naokazu Takemoto and Mr. Toshiro Nikai, Members of the House of Representatives from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Earlier in the forenoon, under the leadership Shri Piyush Goyal, an Indo-Japan Collaboration Dialogue session, in the realm of the needed adoption of Energy Storage batteries for RE integration, was held. From the Japanese side, there was active participation from NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Sumitomo and NGK representatives, manufacturing and providing solutions across all the 3 energy storage technologies - namely Sodium Sulphur, Lithium-Ion & Flow Batteries. Japanese companies have large experience in integrating RE into grids with energy storage technologies and have expressed interest in working in India.

Indian side, apart from the government delegation, was represented by Indian business houses such as IL&FS Energy, ACME & C-STEP. Discussions were held to jump start the Indian energy storage industry across R&D (in collaboration with various Indian IITs and CSIR labs) and partnership for manufacturing in India.

An India energy storage market in excess of 30GW (in lieu of 160 GW of variable RE projects coming up by 2022), presents an unparalleled opportunity to the world to invest in India. Indian market presents a unique opportunity to scaling of energy storage manufacturing; with a very large Indian market spanning across roof-top/off-grid applications and in the grid-connected RE project integration sector.

The immediate opportunities lie in integration with solar roof-tops which have a target capacity addition of 40 GW by 2022, solar streetlights in all villages of the country, and diesel replacement in all use cases. An immediate opportunity is presented by the replacement of diesel based generation through renewable energy generation.

Shri Goyal emphasized the importance of the roundtable on smart grid/smart meters as the most important session amongst all for its potential wide ranging impact on the transmission and distribution sector in India. The DISCOM reform scheme, UDAY, has the potential to transform the power scenario in India and the smart meters are expected to play a pivotal role in it. The companies such as Omron, Toshiba, Hitachi, NEDO, Fuji, Sumitomo Electric and Mitsubishi Electric apart from the industry bodies such as IEEMA participated in this session.

RM/PS