Modern coal technologies can help India bring down carbon emissions as well as provide electricity to more number of people at affordable rates, according to World Coal Association.
"India has made it very clear that coal will be critical to delivering its economic development and energy access objectives...," World Coal Association Chief Executive Benjamin Sporton was quoted as saying in a statement.
Sporton, who was speaking at a conference here, said that the power generation capacity from coal will more than double between now and 2040.
"Coal will help fuel the economic development of India's economy as it urbanises and industrialises over the decades to come.
"With 300 million people currently living without access to electricity and many more -- including businesses that can help drive growth -- suffering from intermittent supply, coal will do much of the heavy lifting in powering up India's economy," he said.
Reflecting on the World Coal Association's (WCA) recent report, India's Energy Trilemma, Sporton noted that modern high efficiency low emission coal technologies will be essential to provide affordable electricity while reducing emissions to meet climate objectives.
"Our research shows that while renewable technologies such as solar PV in India could result in high emission abatement, they do not provide the scale of generation growth required to meet electrification targets," he said.
"Modern high efficiency coal plants can actually abate carbon emissions at a much lower cost compared to solar PV and provide almost four times as much increase in power generation," he added.
"All forms of electricity will have a role to play in India, indeed non-hydro renewables are forecast to grow almost exponentially - but our analysis shows the huge co-benefits of building modern coal plants.
"It's for this reason that the World Coal Association believes there must be more international support for high efficiency low emission coal technology," Sporton said.
Noting recent developments in international coal financing policy, particularly with more restrictive positions from the World Bank and OECD, Sporton said: "The international community needs to be taking an approach that helps deploy the most efficient coal in place of the least efficient coal technology, rather than just ignoring the reality that coal will play a very significant role in industrialising and urbanising economies like India.
