Power ministers of SAARC countries agree to exchange power beyond boundaries
Monday, 20 October 2014 00:00
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Reuters: Power ministers of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries agreed to work together in various fields including security, renewable energy and making a common grid for better exchange of power.
Addressing a news briefing in New Delhi on Friday (17 October), India’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal, said that discussions were held to expand frontiers to exchange power.
Energy ministers and senior officials from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were present in the meeting.
“In the course of the two-day summit, there have been extensive deliberations across a wide area of subjects spanning different aspects of energy, thermal energy, cooperation in renewable energy, activities related to energy security, relations in expanding the frontiers so that we can exchange power, so that we can transmit power,” said Goyal.
The agenda of the meeting also included review of status of implementation of decisions of the Fourth Meeting of SAARC Energy Ministers held in Dhaka in 2011.
Goyal has called upon SAARC nations to build a power grid so that excess production of power in one region can easily be used to meet deficit elsewhere.
“We believe that the shared concerns for the development of the entire region can be further taken care of, can be further addressed if such a grid were to come up. Very often each country will have its own national grid; it will only mean integrating them with connectivity through two grids and is not something which will mean very large amounts of money,” said Goyal.
SAARC was created in 1985 with its secretariat in Kathmandu.
Regional cooperation in the energy sector began in January 2000 with the setting up of a SAARC Technical Committee on Energy.
