Gujarat unveils solar policy

In a major climate efficient initiative, the Gujarat government on Tuesday came up with a radical solar power generation policy. Those willing to set up solar photovoltic and solar thermal projects in the state will get a lot of number of concessions through this policy.

The government came up with the solar power policy after it received proposals of up to Rs 50,000 crore in form of MoUs at the Vibrant Gujarat summit, officials in the state energy department told TOI.

Concessions also include exemption from electricity duty and demand cut of 50 per cent of the installed capacity. Units that start production before December 31, 2010 can avail these concessions.

Talking to mediapersons on Tuesday, state energy minister Saurabh Patel said, "Today solar power is very costly, but it needs to be developed urgently in view depleting conventional sources of energy and their highly-fluctuating costs. This policy has been proposed to plan out things for the next decade."

The concessions include, guarantee to buy power for 12 years at its production cost Rs 13 per unit for photovoltic projects and Rs 10 per unit for thermal projects.

Though the capital cost for setting up a solar photovoltic solar plant is Rs 20 crore per MW and Rs 15 crore for thermal solar plant, Patel said, "These concessions will enable top companies to do cost-effective research and development in Kutch, Banaskantha, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar for alternative sources of energy. A lot of these companies have already explored possibilities of setting up solar plants."

"The state's policy is particularly radical since the Centre's cap for solar power projects in India is 50 MW, while Gujarat has put a cap of 500 MW 10 times more than the Centre. Rajasthan has also announced a policy with a cap of 50 MW," a senior official added.

ref:thetimesofindia