Govt raises National Solar Mission target to 1,00,000 MWp by 2022

The Union Minister of State for New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal will be inaugurating National Workshop on Roof Top Solar Power on June 7, 2016, aiming to encourage rooftop solar power projects nationwide.

All the union ministries and state governments are asked to take part of this initiation by the government.  The state governments are asked respectively to utilise space on rooftops and wastelands around the buildings, especially, which are under construction.

The power generated from solar rooftop plants installed even today is almost at par with the commercial tariff for consumers in many states. The cost of solar power is on declining trend while the cost of fossil fuel based electricity is increasing day by day. 

The rooftop SPV systems on buildings’ roof space can be installed to replace diesel gen-sets installed for minimum load requirement for operation during load shedding. The tariff would be Rs. 6.50/kWh of solar power, which is cheaper than the diesel gen-sets based electricity generation and also cheaper than the cost at which most DISCOMs would make power available to the industrial and commercial consumers.

About 4200MWp aggregate capacity of grid connected solar rooftop systems would be installed in the country including with subsidy, which will result in abatement of about 60 million tonnes of CO2 per years over its life cycle.

The achievement of the program would also contribute country’s energy security and ecological security in carbon emissions. The major infrastructure sector i.e. Metro Rail Projects, Railways, Airports, Jal Boards, Shipping, Sports Stadiums, Oil Companies, Factories etc. are also coming forward for installation of Grid Connected Solar Rooftop Plants. 

The in-principle approval has been considered for 2403 MWp projects to Solar Energy Corporation of India (750MWp), Ministry of Railways (450 MWp), State Nodal Agencies (967MWp), Banks (15MWp) and other government institutions. The Reserve Bank of India has included the projects for which bank loans up to a limit of Rs 15 crore. For individual households, the loan limit is Rs 10 lakh per borrower.