New Website of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy | 16 Mar 2020

Why in News

  • Recently, a new website of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was launched.
  • The Ministry website hosts KUSUM Scheme Portal, Akshay Urja Portal and India Renewable Idea Exchange (IRIX) Portal.

KUSUM Scheme

  • KUSUM stands for Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan. It’s objective is to provide financial and water security to farmers through harnessing solar energy capacities of 25,750 MW by 2022.
  • The scheme consists of three components:
    • Installation of ground mounted grid connected renewable power plants in the rural areas.
    • Installation of standalone solar powered agriculture pumps.
    • Solarisation of grid-connected agriculture pumps to make farmers independent of grid supply and also enable them to sell surplus solar power generated to DISCOM.

Benefits

  • Stable and continuous source of income to the rural landowners.
  • Availability of sufficient local solar/other renewable energy based power for feeding rural load centres and agriculture pump-set loads.
  • Reducing transmission losses.
  • Save the expenditure incurred on diesel for running diesel pumps.
  • Substantial environmental impact in terms of savings of CO2 emissions.

India Renewable Idea Exchange (IRIX)

  • IRIX is a platform that promotes the exchange of ideas among energy conscious Indians and the Global community.

Source: PIB