Eyeing an alternative of fossil fuel to meet growing energy needs, India is planning to generate 175 GW from green energy by 2022.
Speaking at the workshop on rooftop solar recently in New Delhi, Indian Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal said, “The target of generating 175,000 MW of Renewable energy (RE) by 2022 should be taken as a mission for ensuring energy security of the country.”
India will soon lead the league of pioneer countries of the world in the field of renewable energy (RE), Goyal adds.
Goyal also launched Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)’s loan scheme for rooftop solar PV power projects.
The scheme will provide loans at the interest rate of 9.9 per cent to 10.75 per cent to the system aggregators and the developers.
Pradeep Kumar Sinha, Cabinet Secretary said that as India has great potential for solar rooftop projects, the power ministry has decided to generate 40,000 MW from solar rooftop systems from overall capacity of 100,000 MW of solar power which has not been exploited fully at present.
However, to achieve this target, we need policy & regulatory interventions and the state regulators should have to fix the tariff for renewable power which goes to grid, Sinha stressed.
To achieve this, Sinha said that amendments in the Electricity Act to introduce Renewable Generation obligation is proposed along with raising of Renewable Power Obligation in the tariff policy. In additions, stringent penalties for violations are being proposed.
In order to harness RE, power ministry need capital that has to be infused for which it is trying to get $2 billion from World Bank and ADB towards rooftop projects which can be passed on to the banks to enable them to finance the projects on soft rates of interest to the agencies, Upendra Tripathy, Secretary, Indian Ministry of Renewable Energy (MNRE) said the workshop.
Tripathy said that ministry has got fund of $800 million (Rs 5000 crore) for rooftop which can be given in the form of interest subvention or 15 percent interest subsidy.
Ministry has got commitment of 1 million euros from kfw, Frankfurt based German government-owned development bank and further negotiating with different agencies to get more capital for RE sector, Tripathy adds.
He further told that according to small survey held by the Ministry, projects worth 1500 MW capacity can be placed on rooftops of government departments.
Tripathy also emphasized that the distribution companies should implement regulations relating to net-metering/feed-in-tariff, grid connectivity and the metering arrangements and develop suitable and simple mechanism to promote the solar rooftops in the country.
MNRE has provided the financial assistance of $157,000 (Rs 1 crore) to each ministry of the central government to install minimum 1 MW solar plants on their roofs/lands and also in their associated Institutions.
The ministries also review solar energy programmes and sessions on other renewable energy technologies and programmes, including Small Hydro Power, Biomass Power, Bagasse Cogeneration, SADP, Wind Power, RPOs/RECs, Improved Cook Stoves, HRD, Biogas and Biofuels.
