Representatives of India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) have discussed plans to introduce a separate policy support scheme for Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) interested in developing their own solar PV projects.
Many of Indias leading PSUs (essentially state-owned companies) are cash-rich and keen to develop their solar footprint, said a representative of the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and, as such, may require policy support that goes beyond the current 50 MW to 100 MW capacities that most projects are eligible for.
"There is a lot of interest [among PSUs] and these are cash-rich companies, so there is a proposal for a separate scheme under which public sector companies can invest," said SECIs senior manager for PV, Bharath Reddy. However, discussions are still in the early stage.
Large Indian PSUs include ONGC, BHEL and NTPC each of which has revealed grand PV plans recently; plans that are likely to dwarf the 100 MW top-end capacity for projects by private power producers.
"PSUs can be a great push for solar," said Refex Energy Ltd's MD, Anil Jain. "With the kind of balance sheet and bandwidth they have, they can set up big plants in the range of 500 MW to 1 GWW in a short space of time.
"Many of the PSUs and other government entities are sitting on huge land banks and utilizing them for setting up solar power plants can be a great idea."
Activity so far is restricted to talk and initial draft planning, but the appetite is most certainly apparent. NTPC Ltd the largest power company in India – has 100 MW of solar PV capacity at the planning stage, and is targeting 1 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2017.
In Rajasthan, the biggest PSU project in the country a 4 GW solar PV installation involves six of Indias largest state-owned companies, including BHEL, PGCIL (the Power Grid Corporation of India) and SECI.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.