BENGALURU: Karnataka Energy Minister V Sunil Kumar on Thursday said the state will focus on green energy parks and aim to set up 10 Gigawatt power plants in the next five years. Kumar told reporters, “Our aim is to come up with a hybrid power park. Apart from generating solar and wind energy, the parks will also be used for storage purposes, and 50,000 MW solar power storage will be realized at the earliest. It will give a fillip to PM Narendra Modi’s dream project of green energy.”
In the coming days, private players entering the solar power generation sector will also be asked to set up power storage. Hybrid parks will come up at Tumakuru, Davanagere, Chitradurga, Gadag, Haveri and Vijayapura, and a survey will also be taken up for this purpose, he said. Kumar said there was no shortage of coal.
There is a demand for 14,800 MW power in the state, which has never faced any shortage. Karnataka has supplied 1.80 lakh transformers to ensure there are no power supply issues, he added. On alleged saffronisation of textbooks and the recent controversy over RSS ideologue Keshav Hedgewar’s views in textbooks, he said there is nothing wrong. He clarified that lessons on Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Narayan Guru are intact.