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(In India) Low manpower, land, no longer hindrance to use of solar power, says ministry
http://www.firstpost.com/india/low-manpower-land-no-longer-hindrance-to-use-of-solar-power-says-ministry-2828976.html[font face=Serif][font size=5]Low manpower, land, no longer hindrance to use of solar power, says ministry[/font]
RN Bhaskar Jun 11, 2016 16:38 IST
[font size=3]It was perhaps the most candid outline of what lies ahead for the solar power sector in India. Upendra Tripathy, secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, spoke of the big plans that lie ahead for this sector. He said this while delivering the keynote address at the FPJ-IMC Forum on Solar Energy: The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Tripathy began by pointing out the problem he had with the theme. “I did not understand the theme. . . . We find no agony in any of this.” And then began outlining the factors that make his ministry and his government quite exuberant about this sector.
True, he admitted, there was a period when nothing made sense. Nobody in the ministry knew how it would meet a target of 100 GW of solar power. Even today, with under 20 GW of capacity in the solar power sector over the past seven years, there were questions about the government’s ability to set up another 80 GW of capacity within the next six years. There was also the question about money. Who would finance the 80GW of solar capacity? At a cost of Rs 5 crore per MW of installed capacity, the total funding required could be as much as Rs 4 lakh crore.
But things began looking brighter when the ministry decided to hold a meeting with potential investors and seek out their interests. By the time the exercise was over, the ministry had commitments for 277,000 megawatts (277 GW). As Tripathy put it, “(We were now confronted with) a second challenge because what you do with 277,000 megawatt. You need only 100,000 megawatts.”
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RN Bhaskar Jun 11, 2016 16:38 IST
[font size=3]It was perhaps the most candid outline of what lies ahead for the solar power sector in India. Upendra Tripathy, secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, spoke of the big plans that lie ahead for this sector. He said this while delivering the keynote address at the FPJ-IMC Forum on Solar Energy: The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Tripathy began by pointing out the problem he had with the theme. “I did not understand the theme. . . . We find no agony in any of this.” And then began outlining the factors that make his ministry and his government quite exuberant about this sector.
True, he admitted, there was a period when nothing made sense. Nobody in the ministry knew how it would meet a target of 100 GW of solar power. Even today, with under 20 GW of capacity in the solar power sector over the past seven years, there were questions about the government’s ability to set up another 80 GW of capacity within the next six years. There was also the question about money. Who would finance the 80GW of solar capacity? At a cost of Rs 5 crore per MW of installed capacity, the total funding required could be as much as Rs 4 lakh crore.
But things began looking brighter when the ministry decided to hold a meeting with potential investors and seek out their interests. By the time the exercise was over, the ministry had commitments for 277,000 megawatts (277 GW). As Tripathy put it, “(We were now confronted with) a second challenge because what you do with 277,000 megawatt. You need only 100,000 megawatts.”
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