Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s initiatives to boost solar energy production in the state, is set to make Telangana to become one of the host spots for solar energy development in the country. The state is targeted of power generation capacity of 5,000 MW by 2019-20 with solar photovoltaic and coal energy.
According to Special Chief Secretary (Energy) Ajay Mishra the state has a vast solar potential with average insulation (amount of solar radiation reaching the earth surface) of nearly 5.5 kWh/m2 for 300 sunshine days. By the end of December 2016, Telangana had installed a total solar capacity of 1070 MW, with 918 MW of utility scale solar projects and 27 MW of rooftop solar projects.
Projects with generation capacity of 2000 MW are in pipeline with number of solar power developers engaged in building projects. Under Telangana Solar Power Policy 2015, which will be valid for the next five years, Telangana state government aims at creating an enabling environment for prospective solar power developers to harness substantial quantum of solar power in optimum manner.
The policy provides various incentives to the developers which include a single window and speedy clearance to all solar projects, exemption from the Land Ceiling Act, deemed conversion to non-agricultural land status for the land acquired for the project, 100% refund on Value Added Tax (VAT) etc.,
Ajay Mishra mentioned about scaling up of Roof top projects which will be financially viable. Telangana State may also look at making Telangana State an Industrial hub for manufacturing of solar equipment’s with an enabling policy of supply of solar power making it an Integrated Solar Park.
Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission chairman Ismail Ali Khan explained the need for right mix of conventional and renewable energy sources. Solar tariff has attend grid parity with tariff lower than Rs. 5/-, state may look at feed in tariff of average purchase cost with fixed escalation of 3-4%. This will attract lot of investment into state and thereby achieve social transformation of the state, he added.
