Doubling solar power in India

by guest author - Girish Shivakumar

Its been a phenomenal period in India ever since the new Government assumed office in India. Already known as a patron of alternate energy with special affiliation to solar energy, Mr. Narendra Modi has directed all concerned ministries to ramp up power generation in the country.

Solar sector first had to swallow a bitter pill in Accelerated Depreciation benefit being restored to wind energy and then came the good news in form of dumping the anti-dumping plea. Had the anti-dumping plea made a regulation solar power projects could have cost more by an average of 20% which would have been a dampener to the sector. What followed this was a slew of policies from across Indian states. The newly bifurcated states of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana who are vying for funds and favours from the central government on the pretext of being under developed announced a massive 500MW solar power project policies each. That has created a buzz and if rumors are to be true Andhra Pradesh has received proposal for over 1000MW for the 500MW tender and the same is likely to happen in Telengana.

At the central level, ONGC issued an Expression of Interest (EoI) inviting developers to work on their ambitious solar and wind power projects and trailing them behind was another major national power house who issued their own EoI for a 1000MW solar project. Another Indian state once a leader in solar technology, Karnataka launched its own solar policy and a 500MW project pipeline for developers and another 300MW for land owners to setup solar projects.

The National Solar Mission, the flag bearer for Indian solar power development was slated to announce its guidelines for the next phase of the project and this past week it released them and it aims to develop 1000MW of projects by 2016. A part of it, 250MW is reserved for domestic modules. One significant note in this as well the NTPC 250 MW bid is the minimum capacity of project, in both cases the minimum capacity has been kept at 50MW. It shall ensure only the big players with the required technical expertise would participate. Both the projects have been allotted to Andhra Pradesh which is facing a serious power crisis after the separation. Important measure in these project is the onus of land availability and evacuation infrastructure rests with NTPC and MNRE which lessens the burden on the developer who otherwise would have faced a hard time identifying 250 Acres of land required for a 50MW project.

Cty:juwi Solar

India which currently has a solar installation of nearly 3000MW would see an influx of 750MW by March 2015 from the NSM project and post that would see an addition of 1000MW from the new states of AP and Telengana followed by another 800MW from Karnataka and a 250MW from NTPC then a 1000MW from NSM by 2016. Adding up the numbers would mean a capacity addition of 2800MW which would double the current solar power installation.

That will indeed be phenomenal!

For more topics on solar, you can follow Girish's blog on the link below

http://www.girishshivakumar.wordpress.com