Energy body refutes reports of centre not pursuing solar plants with 1 lakh MW

 Jayarama Emani| The Dollar Business President of Solar Energy Society of India (SESI), Ajay Prakash Shrivastava, refuted reports in certain sections of the Media that claimed that the government is not pursuing installation of solar plants with 1 lakh megawatt capacity in the year 2015-16. Speaking to The Dollar Business, Shrivastava said, “The reports are not entirely true. The activities are there though at a slow speed which should be speeded up. Various state governments have come up with solar energy policy and others are in line and are hoping for joint ventures with foreign investors.” Stating that the implementation of the scheme is taking time as solar energy is a new venture and before implementation of the scheme, lot of awareness has to be created, Shrivastava said that the countries who have expressed interest to be part of the projects as part of RE-INVEST 2015 have to be little patient as the government accelerates steps for installation of 1 lakh MW. “The distribution companies in some parts of the country have started to adopt the solar energy and we are hopeful the others also will follow suit once the transmission and distribution lines will be improved,” he said and added, “focusing on small solar projects initially is also a viable option as it is easy to install the same in a fixed time frame and gives employment to large number of persons. However, focusing on small solar projects does not mean that it will affect the medium and large scale ones.” The UNDP, World Bank and US Government departments should fund these projects as they are clean energy non-polluting projects and generate employment in large numbers, he opined. A section of the Media quoting sources from the government said that the government is not inclined to install solar plants with 1 lakh MW capacity in the year 2015-16 because the departments that need to contribute with supportive policies on issues such as rooftop solar panels, tax breaks and subsidies, have not made the necessary commitments so far. As a result, the clean energy ministry has kept the solar installation target for 2015-16 the same as last year at 1,100 mw, instead of accelerating it significantly to achieve the Rs 6 lakh crore target of scaling up solar capacity from the current 3,000 MW, or 3 GW, to 100 GW by 2022.  

  This article was published on March 17, 2015.