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The Karnataka state government is set to revamp its solar energy policy with far-reaching features, in an effort to achieve self-sufficiency in electricity generation by 2016.
As part of the overhaul of the existing energy policy, the government intends to introduce an incentive scheme for domestic household consumers, to encourage them to install rooftop solar panels to produce electricity for self consumption and supply to the grid.
Any household installing a solar panel for this purpose will be paid for the surplus energy supplied to the grid after domestic consumption, said Kaushik Mukherjee, Chief Secretary of the Karnataka Government said on Wednesday at the CII Partnership Summit in Bangalore.
“The government will purchase every single unit generated from any source in the state,” said Amita Prasad, principal secretary, department of energy, Government of Karnataka. “A meter will be installed at the households to measure the consumption and transmission of power produced from rooftop solar panels and the consumers will get a cheque delivered to them in case of supply to the grid.”
She said the state aims to achieve self sufficiency in power generation by 2016 and will add 3,000 megawatt in additional capacity to the state grid. Efforts are also being made to purchase power from the private producers to tide over the crisis for the current year, she added. The state intends to generate 2000 Mw power from the solar energy source by 2020.
Mukherjee said the state government would spend close to Rs 7,000 crore on energy subsidies to farmers and to tide over the shortage, the government intends to encourage individuals to generate power in their household through rooftop solar panels. The new policy will be announced very soon, he added.
Karnataka has a total installed power generation capacity of 11,439 Mw, which is 6.7 per cent of total power generated in the country. The state is currently undertaking 18,183 Mw of proposed and ongoing projects. Currently, the state generates about 14 Mw of solar energy.
