The governments of India and the Maldives plan to establish an interconnection for transmitting clean energy between the two countries.

Indian Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister RK Singh and the Maldives’ Environment, Climate Change and Technology Minister Aminath Shauna discussed the renewable energy transfer project proposal in New Delhi.

Singh has also welcomed the Maldives’ efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.

During the meeting, the two ministers also proposed memoranda of understanding (MoU) for energy cooperation and transmission interconnection under the One Sun, One World, One Grid (OSOWOG) scheme.

An agreement is being prepared for the MoU on transmission interconnection, under which a technical team from India will visit the Maldives to examine the technical feasibility of the project.

At a later stage, agencies from the two countries will create a detailed project report (DPR), which will include an undersea cable route survey and network expansion in Male.

Last month, it was reported that the Government of India is planning to build ten nuclear power plants in ‘fleet mode’ over the next three years.

The nuclear power plants will be built over a period of five years from the first pour of concrete (FPC).

The FPC is scheduled for next year at the 700MW Kaiga atomic power station, which is located in the Indian state of Karnataka.

It will mark the start of nuclear power reactor construction from the pre-project stage, consisting of excavation activities at the nuclear facility site.

India currently operates a total of 22 nuclear reactors, with more than 6.7GW of combined capacity.

In 2017, the government approved the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) to build ten units of locally-designed pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR), each with 700MW of capacity.