Off-grid solar energy applications have a tremendous potential, said Dr Abdullah. File photo
Dr Farooq Abdullah, the Union Minister for New & Renewable Energy has unveiled a migration policy under the National Solar Mission. The migration policy is aimed at giving a head start to setting up grid-connected solar power plants.
NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN) had invited applications from project
developers who were at an advanced stage of preparedness. The Minister said that NVVN, after a scrutiny of the applications, is now ready to announce the
eligible developers and shall be formally issuing awards to them shortly.
He said that his Ministry is working closely with stakeholders to facilitate the creation of an ecosystem that will encourage the growth of this nascent sector, reliably, quickly and at reasonable profit to developers. Off-grid solar energy applications have a tremendous potential in reaching out to people in such rural and remote areas by providing basic energy services to them, Dr Abdullah said.
The Minister pointed out that merely by distributing solar lanterns in remote areas and to nomadic populations, we can light up over a million homes. Similarly one million streetlights can illuminate streets in over one lakh villages. These efforts, he said, will also save the environment as 10 million lanterns can save 50 crore litres of kerosene in a year, which in turn can mitigate a potential subsidy bill of Rs1,000 to 1,500 crore in a year.
Further, the huge entrepreneurial potentialities thrown up by the rapid adoption of these systems will create thousands of jobs as well as self-employment opportunities.
Dr. Abdullah shared with the audience the other initiatives of the Ministry. The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has recently sanctioned a project to
Rajasthan to provide solar power to every single panchayat in the State by installing 1.12 kW capacity solar systems at each of 9,168 Bharat Nirman Rajeev Gandhi Sewa Kendras.
Yet another area of application could be telcom towers, which are currently using diesel to provide un-interrupted power services. The use of solar energy to power these systems can considerably mitigate the use of diesel especially during the daytime. Feeding power to LT or 11 KV grid is yet another important application, which can help villages and industry by providing additional power for rural applications such as irrigation pump sets or even meet the unmet power requirement in the daytime.
There are substantial losses as electricity flows from points of generation to distribution. Feeding of power at consumption points would not only help reduce these losses but also help strengthen grid and its performance and supply electricity to the consumers.
Therefore, under the Solar Mission, we have decided to encourage setting up of 100 MW capacity of rooftop and other small grid connected solar power plants in the first phase itself, the Minister said.
While the Ministry has now finalized the guidelines to effectively implement the schemes on 11 KV grid connected solar power plants, the States too need to
come out with their own downstream policies to promote tail-end plants, Dr Abdullah added.
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