India Coal to invest $1.2billion in renewables

China has already announced carbon pricing by 2016 and quality standards that are beyond much of Australia's coal. India has also joined the worldwide move to renewables. It has announced the doubling of import duty on coal, the extra money being used to invest in solar. 

Now the worlds biggest coal company India Coal, has announced as well that it will be investing $1.2 billion in renewable energy for India.

Coal India is planning to develop solar power plants across various states of India. According to media reports, the company is in talks with Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) for the development of 1,000MW solar power plants. The site identification for putting up of solar plants has already been initiated. Coal India will undertake investments of $1.2 billion for this initiative. 

Coal companies are always under pressure from various environmental groups to source their coal in a more ethical and environmentally friendly way to cut pollution. The situation of Coal India Limited is, however, somewhat better than the other coal companies of the world in terms of overall carbon footprint. Though being criticized for consistently failing to meet India’s annual coal production targets, Coal India is known for its sound environmental policies to keep check on greenhouse gas emissions in its production process. 

Recently, another Indian coal mining company – Neyveli Lignite Corporation – announced its plans to invest $80 million to develop 80MW of wind and solar power capacity. more