The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized the
Annual Power Conference in the city recently, with its theme ‘Solar Power in Karnataka - Chartering the
Path for a Bright Future.’ Leading industry
experts highlighted the optimistic sentiments and the opportunities that
the policies of the Centre and the State governments
have opened up in this sector.
The conference dwelt in detail on key issues relating to the
Centre’s ambitious plans to generate 100 GW of solar power in the next seven
years alongside Karnataka’s pioneering effort to notify a separate policy to
tap this all important source of renewable energy.
The meet saw speakers cover important issues relating to
government policies and challenges, roof top solar power, emerging
technologies in the sector besides highlighting grid evacuation,
availability and load despatch. Equal emphasis was laid on the
all important aspect of the financial model of generating solar power.
In his inaugural address Maheshwar Rao, Managing Director, Karnataka Power Corporation
Limited said that the state envisaged a capacity addition of
2000 MW by 2021 through grid connected utility scale projects. This would be in
addition to grid connected roof top ventures. Besides, the policy, he
said proposed to increase energy access through solar power grid solutions. In
this context, he added that the state’s policy aimed at installation
of over 400 MW of solar rooftop projects by 2018.Harvesting solar energy
through rooftop installations helped in reducing dependence on diesel based
captive and back up generation units.
At the same time he referred to the challenges that the solar
sector posed even as it continued to evolve. Particular mention was made of the
lack of enforcement of Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) target. This, he
said, was a critical issue which was cramping development of renewable
resources. Likewise, poor financials of state power utilities continued to
be a cause of concern in the process impacting the viability of renewable
energy projects.
Of equal significance was the issue of land availability and
acquisition. However, speaking on the issue, G V Balaram, Managing Director, Karnataka Renewable Energy
Development Ltd, said that the state government was set to generate over
1000 mw of solar power through the lease holding of land alone. An
estimated 15000 acres of wasteland near the IT capital had been found for
setting up a solar park with the possibility of generating over 1600 MW, to
start with. He said the government hoped to develop such parks to generate at
least 6000 MV of solar power.
In fact, he sad once ready this would be the world’s largest
and cheapest solar park. NTPC and other parties had also evinced interest
in putting up solar power plants here ranging between 500 MV and 600 MW.
Vedamoorthy Namasivayam, Senior
Director and Energy & Resources Industry lead, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
India Pvt. Ltd, gave
an overview of the challenges in the renewable energy sector with emphasis
on economics, environment and security. While favorable state level policies,
feed-in-tariff regime, viability gap funding mechanism, capital
subsidies and progressive net metering arrangements had created a
supportive environment, he said critical issues continued to plague the sector.
His views were echoed by Ashish
Khanna, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Power Solar limited. He said while
the ambitious targets showed the determination of the government in realizing
its goal in terms of solar power generation land acquisition process, long
approval and clearance processes, did create bottlenecks. One of the key
issues affecting the spread of technology, he said, is related to inadequate
grid infrastructure. While intermittent power generation from solar
technology did pose a major technical challenge.
In this context, he added that the government’s vision in
tapping solar power was good but the problem really lay in the execution of
plans. It was also important to invest in technology while putting up the
desired infrastructure.
S Chandrasekhar, Past Chairman, CII
Karnataka, & Managing Director, Bhoruka Power Corporation, maintained that the focus
on solar technology, initiated with the launch of the National Solar Mission in
2010, was positioned to take advantage of the huge potential of this
renewable power source. It aimed at leveraging the current trends of declining
solar costs.
With the Union government’s recent decision to scale up the
installed solar capacity, from 3.7 GW to 100 GW by 2022, the focus on the
development of the sector had taken centre stage in the Indian power sector.
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