The central government is looking at bringing in policy changes to pep up the solar power sector where not much is happening for sometime.
It is looking at increasing the viability quotient of the sector for entrepreneurs so as to lure more players into the sector.
“We have some targets for generation of power through solar and the government is finetuning policy issues in order to achieve the goal,” Bharat Bhargava, director at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said.
According to him, one of the key moves would be increase in the cap on generation capacities.
Currently, each project allotted under the National Solar Mission has a maximum limit of about 5 mw.
The government has decided to enhance it to 20 mw per project and in the case of a consortium taking up a project the maximum capacity would be about 50 mw.
“The enhancement would also help the projects in getting proper financing,” he said.
The government has set a target of achieving 2,000 mw solar power generation capacity by 2013, while projects with a capacity of about 400 mw would get added by this fiscal-end.
“By March 2013 we will add two gigawatts. By this March end we will have close to about 400 mw.Basically there are two or three major initiatives. One is the National Solar Mission. Other is Gujarat policy. Third is Maharashtra’s initiative. Mahagenco is setting up a 120 mw capacity, Tata Power and Reliance are setting up 40 mw each to meet their renewable purchase obligation,” Bhargava said.
He said the first batch of solar power is expected to come from the existing photovoltaic (PV) developers which have shifted their projects (migrant projects) under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.
Replying to a query on the second-batch bidding, he said as many as 218 companies have applied offering 2,500 mw of projects for the second round, seven times the allocated capacity of 350 mw, for which bids were invited.
“Bids have been called for 350 mw and people have offered 2,500 mw. A total of 218 companies have applied. By the end of this month all bidding process will be completed,” Bhargava said.
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