GAIL (India) Ltd, the country’s largest gas utility, plans to invest over Rs 45,000 crore over the next five years to expand the national gas pipeline grid and city gas distribution network, chairman Ashutosh Karnatak said.

The gas pipelines will take the fuel to the eastern and northeastern regions as well as to consumers in the south as part of the government’s efforts to raise the share of natural gas in India’s energy basket to 15 per cent by 2030 from 6.2 per cent, he said.

GAIL’s push for the creation of infrastructure is in line with the Centre’s plan to create a gas-based economy that is less reliant on polluting fuels to meeting its energy needs.

“Before we move to zero-emission technologies (for both automobiles and factories), say by 2040/2050, natural gas is best suited to lower emissions from the current levels,” he said.

“Natural gas is a ‘happy fuel’ as it has a fraction of emissions compared with alternative liquid fuels such as diesel in automobiles and coal in power plants,” he added.

At present, India consumes around 160 million standard cubic meters of gas per day (mmscmd) and consumption has to rise to 400mmscmd to reach a 15 per cent share in the energy mix, he said, adding that GAIL was playing its part by creating the infrastructure.

GAIL now operates 12,160 km of pipeline network and markets two-thirds of all-natural gas sold in the country. It is executing more than 5,500 kilometres of pipeline projects and a similar length is in the planning stage.

Besides pipelines, GAIL is expanding city gas distribution networks for retailing of CNG.

Adani chases solar dream

Mumbai: Gautam Adani on Wednesday announced his plans to make his group the world’s largest solar power company by 2025 and the biggest renewable energy firm by 2030 through aggressive capacity additions in these areas.

In a LinkedIn post, Adani said the group’s existing portfolio of renewable power generating assets now stands at over 2.5 gigawatts (GW). The aim is to more than double this by 2020 with the implementation of a 2.9GW under-construction capacity. Subsequently, the group intends to record another three-fold growth, which will see the capacity touching 18GW by 2025.

“We have committed to invest over 70 per cent of our budgeted capex of the energy vertical into clean energy and energy-efficient systems,” Adani said in the post.

Additional reporting by our special correspondent