20000MW grid solar power by 2022: Farooq Abdullah
Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, announced an ambitious plan that aims at an installed capacity of 20,000 MW under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan in 2022. The first phase will see the setting up of 1,100 mw capacity of grid solar power and 200 mw capacity of off-grid solar applications, based on both solar thermal and photovoltaic technologies.
Farooq Abdullah called it a “historic and transformational initiative of the UPA government.” The three-phase mission was sanctioned by the Union Cabinet on November 19 and involves an initial investment of Rs 4,337 crore. The ministry of new & renewable energy has been entrusted with overseeing the implementation of the national solar plan.
The mission will focus on R&D and human resource development, in order to develop and strengthen skills and heighten indigenous content to make the mission sustainable. Mr. Abdullah said new ideas will emerge to make technologies more effective. “It is envisaged that as a result of rapid scaling up and technological developments, the price of solar power will be at a par with grid power by the end of the Mission, enabling accelerated and large-scale expansion thereafter.”
Mr. Abdullah further said, the Mission renders for a single-window investor-friendly mechanism, which is anticipated to cut down risks and furnish an attractive, predictable and sufficiently extended tariff for the purchase of solar power for the grid. The focal point, for the next three years, will be the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam, the power trading arm of the NTPC.
The government will assign the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam for purchasing solar power generated by independent solar power producers, at rates set by the Central Regulatory Electricity Commission. The government will also offer an equivalent capacity (mw) of power from the unallocated quota of NTPC for bundling with solar power. The utilities will be able to account for the purchase of solar power against their RPO obligations.
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