Grid Corporation of Orissa Ltd (Gridco), the state owned bulk purchaser of power, on Tuesday, entered into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with India's biggest power generation utility-National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for purchase of 10 MW of solar power.
Gridco would purchase 5 MW of power from NTPC's Dadri solar power plant in Uttar Pradesh and 5 MW from the Faridabad solar power station in Haryana.
The PPA was signed between M K V Ramarao, executive director (commercial), NTPC and P K Pradhan, director (commercial), Gridco at the state secretariat in the presence of B K Patnaik, Chief Secretary (Orissa), PK Jena, the state energy secretary and Hemant Sharma, managing director of Gridco.
"NTPC would be supplying solar power to Gridco in bundled form along with thermal power and the tariff for solar power will be in the range of Rs 4.74-5 per unit. Gridco has been mandated to buy 40 MW of solar power by 2013 and we have already signed binding agreements for purchase of 38 MW of solar power which includes 30 MW from NTPC and 8 MW from other developers”, said Sharma.
Earlier, Gridco had signed PPAs with eight solar developers, each with a capacity of 1 MW. It had also inked an MoU with Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) to avail generation based incentive (GBI) under the Union ministry of new & renewable energy (MNRE) through IREDA under Rooftop Photovoltaic and Small Solar Generation Programme (RPSSGP) scheme.
In addition to this, Gridco had also entered into power sale agreement with NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of NTPC, to avail solar power bundled with equivalent capacity of thermal power from unallocated share of upcoming NTPC stations under 'New Solar Projects' scheme of MNRE. Under the said scheme, 20 MW of solar power has been allocated to Gridco.
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The National Tariff Policy mandates each state electricity regulatory commission (SERC) to specify a renewable energy purchase obligation by the states in a time-bound manner where solar purchase obligation (SPO) is a part.
The Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has fixed RPO of five per cent for 2011-12 of which 0.1 per cent would be from solar power.