World's Cheapest & Largest Solar Park Likely in Karnataka

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.