Madhya Pradesh government today approved a new solar energy policy under which four solar energy parks each generating 200 MW of power will be set up in the state in public-private partnership.

The Solar Energy Policy 2012 was approved by the state cabinet at its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, official sources said.

Other features of the new policy are 10-year exemption in electricity fee and cess, four per cent subsidy by the state government in the wheeling charges, banking of generated power and exemption as per rules in VAT and entry tax, among others.

Madhya Pradesh, which gets sunshine in abundance, has so far given clearance for setting up 297-MW capacity solar power projects in the state.
Besides, the country’s biggest solar power project, with a capacity to generate 130 MW power, is being set up in Neemuch district of the state.

In an another important decision aimed at giving a boost to the IT sector, the state cabinet has decided to allot land to the IT companies on a lease of 99 years against the present 33 years.

This will also be applicable to those companies which were already allotted land for setting up IT units in the state like Infosys, TCS, Imeptus and Suvi which are establishing SEZ at Indore.

The cabinet also took a number of other decisions including endorsing the state’s new Horticulture Hub Policy 2012 with an aim to give fillip to horticulture sector in the state and acquiring 1,678 acre land of Babai Farm for industrial purpose.

Among the major objectives of the new horticulture policy are making horticulture crops profitable, increasing production and encouraging post-harvesting management which included storage, grading, packing, quality improvement and arrangements for marketing, sources added.

The newly set up Solar Energy Corporation of India intends to set up a few ‘demonstration plants’, to engender home-grown solar technologies, the Chairman of the Corporation, Dr Anil Kakodkar, told Business Line on Thursday.

The not-for-profit, “Section 25 company”, with an authorised capital of Rs 2,000 crore, has a broad mandate to develop the solar industry in India and to implement the next phases of the National Solar Mission, which is one of the eight National Missions taken under the National Action Plan for Climate Change.

The Corporation is thinking of MW-scale plants, of say, 5 MW, that would adopt global available solar technologies to suit Indian conditions. The first of such plants could come up near an existing R&D centre with sufficient human resources to tap, Dr Kakodkar said, without giving more details.

He said that the objective would be to bring down costs so that solar power is not costlier than conventional power.

Asked for examples of technologies that he had in mind, Dr Kakodkar mentioned variants of concentrated solar power and dust-control innovations.

He noted that it is possible to have large solar collectors on which sun’s rays would fall, then move along the plane of the collectors and finally be gathered into a PV module. Another variant of CPV that he described was like a combination of tower and PV-mirrors would reflect sunlight on to a reflector on a tower which would in turn beam the rays back on to a PV panel on the ground.

Dr Kakodkar, a nuclear scientist, who headed the Atomic Energy Commission a few years ago, drew a parallel between such solar technologies that could be indigenously developed, and the ‘pressurised heavy water reactors’ that India developed and became masters in, in the atomic energy field.

In the 1970s, when India was denied technology and fuel, the country developed the PHWR type reactors that use Uranium economically. Today, the PHWRs are very competitive.

“Our approach in solar would be driven by that logic,” Dr Kakodkar said.

Answering a question, he said he was in favour of developing a domestic solar equipment industry.

Asked what role the Corporation would have in the upcoming Phase-II of the National Solar Mission, Dr Kakodkar said that the Corporation could own some solar projects. However, they would not be “run of the mill” plants, but those that would demonstrate an evolving technology, he said.

Dr Kakodkar seemed to see a big role for the Corporation in socially-oriented areas such as rural electrification, micro grids and solar lanterns.

He said that the Corporation was working on a ‘public energy outlet’ model. Giving an example to illustrate this he said that it was possible to have a solar plant on the rooftop of, say, a school, where children could bring their solar lamps for charging during the day. These lamps would light up their homes during the nights.

DuPont Co. has sold thin-film panels for a solar project in India, according to a statement.
DuPont Apollo, a unit of the Wilmington, Delaware-based chemical maker, supplied the panels to Yantra eSolar India Pvt., owner of the 5-megawatt project in western Gujarat state, according to an e-mailed statement today from DuPont.
The statement didn’t provide a value of the deal. The plant in Charanka village is scheduled to be connected to the electricity grid by August, according to the statement.

Three solar power companies are in a legal tangle with the Gujarat Government over the issue of ownership of the companies that are putting up the projects. All the three – Azure Power (Gujarat), Millennium Synergy and ESP Urja – are wholly owned by American solar power developer SunEdison.

The point under dispute is whether or not these three companies are in breach of a covenant of the power purchase agreement which stipulates that the “power producer shall continue to hold at least 51 per cent of equity from the date of signing of this agreement”.

Azure Power (Gujarat) and ESP Urja have a 5 MW plant each, while Millennium runs a 10 MW plant.

Gujarat’s nodal agency Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd had issued notices terminating the power purchase agreement for Azure Power (Gujarat) and had stopped making payments for the purchased power for the other two companies.

Azure Power (Gujarat) was initially promoted by Azure Power India, a company whose various projects have been funded by the German development finance agency, DEG, the US Exim Bank and IFC (Washington).

The three companies have petitioned the Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission. The Commission, in its orders passed recently, has stayed the operation of the termination notice served on Azure Power and has directed GUVNL to make the due payments to Millennium and ESP Urja.

“It is unfair and unjust that the generator is not paid for the power supplied by him to the distribution licensees,” the order says.

In the case of Millennium and ESP Urja, GUVNL had raised the issue of compensation to be paid by the project developers for any violation of the PPA covenants. But the Commission dismissed it saying that was “not a subject matter of the present petition.

”The IFC-funded SunEdison’s contention, as spelt out in the order relating to the Azure Power case, is that it signed the shareholder agreement – for taking over the ownership of the developer – prior to the signing of the PPA.

The question as to whether or not there is a breach of the PPA with respect to the covenant relating to the shareholding pattern is yet to be decided by the Commission.

India is setting up an Investment Promotion Cell for the energy sector to provide a single point of contact for investors, Minister of New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah has said.

In the next five years, the country plans to invest $ 50 billion in renewable energy, including $ 19 billion in wind, $ 25 billion in solar and $ 3 billion each in Hydro and Biomass segments, he said.

“The cell will be our window for the potential investors to engage with us and bring their efforts and ideas to fruition,” Abdullah told reporters after addressing an Investors’ meet here last evening.

He asked global investors to invest in India’s renewable energy sector and support its quest for a low-carbon and environmentally sustainable growth path.

“We strongly believe that it will be a win-win situation for all of us,” he said, asking investors to forge partnerships in the country.

Abdullah said more than 40 investors attended the meet and “they seemed to be very keen to invest in solar and wind projects”.

Further, he stated that India has seen an “impressive increase in installed power capacity, from about 1,350 MW at the time of independence 65 years ago to about 2,00,000 MW at present”.

However, he added that despite such big strides, about 33 per cent of India’s rural households are still deprived of access to commercial energy sources.

“The average per capita consumption of energy in India is still quite low at around 800 units per annum,” he said.

Abdullah said India today stands at fifth position in in terms of renewable energy capacity, after the US, China, Germany and Spain.

“India today stands among the top five countries in terms of renewable energy capacity, with an installed base of over 25,000 MW, which is around 12.5 per cent of the total power generation capacity, contributing to about 6 per cent in the electricity mix.” he said.

“We have decided to increase the share of renewable energy in our power production during the 12th Plan period (2012-17) by increasing the installed capacity by about 30,000 MW,” he added.

He said an investor friendly policy framework has given a strong foundation for the growth of the wind sector in India and “today we stand fifth in the world in terms of total installed capacity of about 17,353 MW.”