Our total electricity generating capacity now is over 390GW, out of which renewables are over 100 GW. At COP26, India announced that by 2030 its non-fossil fuel capacity would be 500GW, a massive increase in ambition. Is such a large capacity creation feasible? What would happen to thermal power? Do we need to just scale up what we have been doing? Or would new programs be also needed?
Our success so far has been through tariff-based bids for grid scale solar projects. The pace of solar capacity addition can be ramped up by tapping the potential of decentralised small solar power installations in rural India. Solar panels can be put up in villages on roof tops, over cattle sheds, grain stores, wastelands, and water bodies. The policy instrument of a feed in tariff to tap this potential would work.
The Distribution Company would need to announce the rate at which it would buy electricity through a long-term power purchase agreement from those who put up solar panels. The offtake could be at the substation, the distribution transformer, or the consumer connection point with the purchase being limited to the Kw range and subject to absorption capacity.
Our success so far has been through tariff-based bids for grid scale solar projects. The pace of solar capacity addition can be ramped up by tapping the potential of decentralised small solar power installations in rural India. Solar panels can be put up in villages on roof tops, over cattle sheds, grain stores, wastelands, and water bodies. The policy instrument of a feed in tariff to tap this potential would work.
The Distribution Company would need to announce the rate at which it would buy electricity through a long-term power purchase agreement from those who put up solar panels. The offtake could be at the substation, the distribution transformer, or the consumer connection point with the purchase being limited to the Kw range and subject to absorption capacity.