Conventional Power Shortage may Force Govt to End Solar Bundling

Centre looks to provide budgetary support for activities in the phase II of solar mission

 

Due to limited availability of conventional power from unallocated central quota, the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) plans to do away with power bundling in the second phase of the national solar mission starting June 2013.

 

“In phase-I, solar power project developers used to sell power to NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam which bundled it with conventional power and sold it at an average rate decided by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to the distribution companies. It is unlikely that after allocation of 1000 MW during Phase I, sufficient unallocated power would be available to support the entire capacity of Phase II of the Solar Mission,” said the draft document.

 

Government is looking at a combination of various schemes to support the solar projects in the second phase. It plans to provide budgetary support for the activities under the national solar mission; to support Viability Gap Funding (VGF) projects through the ‘National Clean Energy Fund’ and international funds under the UNFCCC (United nations framework convention on climate change).

 

750 MW of solar photo voltaic (SPV) projects will be funded via the VGF route in 2013-14 and 770 MW in 2014-15 of phase II. Solar thermal projects worth 1080 MW will be funded through VGF.

 

The first phase of the solar mission will reach completion in March 2013. The SPV projects sanctioned in the batch 2 of the phase I will start commissioning in January next year. “These projects are well ahead of their scheduled time and we hope to commission the total allocated capacity,” said Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary, Mnre. Out of the allotted capacity of 1142 MW in the first phase of the mission under several schemes, 268 MW has been commissioned as of September 2012. 90% of the SPV projects of batch 1 of the phase have been commissioned. The commissioning date of solar thermal projects will also is May 2013. The phase II of the solar mission would also target deployment of 1,000 MW of rooftop projects both at off-grid and grid connected levels. “Large scale solar projects are going to play a huge role in phase-II and for the same reason, it has kept as one of the thrust area under Phase-II. Phase-II is targeting to bring cumulative solar capacity to 10 gigawatt by 2017,” said the draft mission document.

 Source: Economic Times