A power purchase agreement (PPA) will be signed between MahaGenco and the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (Mahavitaran) for the purpose.
To bring down costs of power for consumers like industries, the state government is planning to harness solar energy to service agricultural users. These farm consumers are cross-subsidised by such high-end users.
The state government is launching pilot projects to power agricultural connections through distributed generation of solar energy via private participation, which will bring down electricity tariffs for industries, commercial and domestic users by cutting down on subsidies recovered from them.
"We have approved two pilot projects, one each for a feeder in Ahmednagar and Solapur," Bipin Srimali, principal secretary for energy, and Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Limited (MahaGenco) CMD, told dna. Each of the projects will cover about 600 to 800 agriculture pumps on a feeder and supply about 2 MW of energy.
A power purchase agreement (PPA) will be signed between MahaGenco and the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (Mahavitaran) for the purpose.
Srimali added that the decentralized power generation and distribution scheme will later cover the entire state, thereby placing 1,000 feeders under its ambit, depending on how successfully it is implemented.
"The Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA) has completed necessary technical evaluations. We will soon issue a request for quotations," said Srimali, adding that decentralized generation and distribution of solar power will bring down the cross-subsidy levied on high-end users like industries. This will also bring down the electricity tariff for such consumers.
"We (the state-owned Mahavitaran) will lose consumers, but these will be agricultural consumers who are subsidy takers," said Srimali, adding that the project would be awarded to a private player based on tariff-based competitive bidding.
The project is expected to cost Rs5 to 5.5 crore per MW and the utility will also get 30percent of the cost as viability gap funding (VGF). Mahavitaran will also pitch in with the amount of subsidy saved. The private parties will have to bid based on the final tariff that they will charge end users, he said.
"We eventually plan to cover 1,000 agricultural feeders with a demand of 2,000 MW," Srimali added.
The state government had also rolled out a pilot project to give out 10,000 solar powered off-grid water pumps. It eventually planned to give out 5 lakh pumps. The MahaVitaran has around 17,500 feeders and carries out load-shedding on those which have over 45 percent losses in rural and 42 percent in urban areas, cover ing around 15 percent of Maharashtra.
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