Jul 27 2010
India is planning to attain 1,000 MW of solar energy by the year 2013 from its current production of 5 MW per year. In a joint press conference held on 25th July Sushilkumar Shinde, the Power Minister and Farooq Abdullah Renewable Energy Minister announced the plan of generating 500 MW solar thermal power and an additional 500 MW of power production utilizing photovoltaic cells during the next three years.
The government is planning to extend financial assistance from its government owned undertakings Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) under its intended Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).
The joint press meet unveiled the designed guidelines for selecting fresh grid connected solar power projects and hinted at the proposal to involve Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) to fund the projects.
The latest guidelines make it mandatory for the photovoltaic solar power producing companies to produce 5 Mw or more power for getting connected to the grid. The government has appointed NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam as nodal agency to manage the sales or purchase of electricity produced under the solar mission scheme. While NVVN is planning to call for bids from the developers of such solar projects, the company is planning to extend only, one application for a manufacturing group to encourage large number of participation and competition.
JNNSM is planning to implement the project in three phases viz. phase I 2010–2013, phase II 2013–2017 and phase III 2017–2022.
According to Deepak Puri, Chairman & Managing Director of Moser Baer India, the issued guidelines meets the current requirement, and will create a much sought after strong momentum to the solar industry both from the view of manufacturing and marketing angles to fulfill the assigned task.
Source: http://www.nvvn.co.in/