Haryana to set up solar energy projects

Chandigarh, Jan 23 (UNI) The Haryana government will set up solar energy based power projects in Mega Watt (MW) scale in the state and power produced from these projects will be fed to the state grid.

The Haryana Renewable Development Agency (HAREDA) has submitted an application to the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission for fixation of tariff under Section-3 of Electricity Act-2003.

While stating this today, Director, Haryana Renewable Energy, Department, Mrs Sumita Misra said that the state has about 320 clear sunny days in a year and the solar insolation level in the state was in the range of 5.5 KWH to 6.5 KWH per sq meter of area. This offered a great potential for using solar energy for various thermal and electrical energy applications but the potential available from solar energy was yet to be harnessed in MW scale in the country, Mrs Misra said.

She said that there were many factors affecting the implementation of large scale utilization of solar energy and one of the main reason was the generation cost of energy by using solar photovoltaic or thermal technologies. The present generation cost through photovoltaic power generation was about Rs 15 per Kwh.

Though, the cost of generation was on higher side yet the other environmental benefits relating to the global warming were also to be considered. Solar technology being a clean technology, it would help in reducing carbon dioxide.

She said that with a view to promote this sector, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was in the process of notifying a new scheme to promote generation of power from solar energy through solar photovoltaic or solar thermal technology.

As per this new scheme, the Union Ministry would provide financial assistance amounting to Rs 12/ Kwh in case of solar photovoltaic and Rs 10/Kwh in case of solar thermal power to the developers as incentives to encourage them to set up the projects.

These incentives would be given as the Ministry felt that Rs 15/Kwh was the base line at which such projects could become realistically viable. This incentive would be in addition to the tariff decided by the State Nodal Agencies.

She said that the Union Ministry has set a target to generate 50 MW of power from solar energy during the 11th Five Year Plan for which setting up of a maximum of 10 MW capacity of solar power plant would be considered for any state. She said that Haryana has been at the forefront in the use of renewable energy and has demonstrated its effective utilization.

She said that in the field of SPV technology, HAREDA has set up seven SPV based power plants of 5 KW capacity each in the Morni block of Panchkula under Remote Village Electrification Programme. Besides this, 11 power packs of 1 KW each based on SPV technologies have been set up in various districts under SPV Urban Area Demonstration Programme and 21 more SPV power plants of 2.7 KW capacity each are being set up in Rohtak district to energize computer labs in the rural government schools.

Besides this, HAREDA is promoting the use of solar lanterns, SPV home lighting systems, SPV street lighting systems and SPV water pumping systems under socially oriented scheme of solar photovoltaic demonstration programme.

UNI HS VN1701