The Orissa government hopes to get 20 Mw of power from the first bio-mass based power plant in the state by June-July next year. The power is likely to be available from a rice husk based power plant being set up by Shali Vahana Green Energy Ltd at Nimidha village in Dhenkanal district.
More than half of the construction work of the power project is over and the construction of the boiler is going on at the moment, sources said.
Though the Orissa Renewable Energy Development Agency (OREDA), the nodal agency to promote renewable energy in the state, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with eight developers for bio-mass based power projects with aggregate production capacity of 90 Mw, Shali Vahana Green Energy Ltd would be the first to generate power.
In addition to the eight bio-mass based power projects approved earlier, the State Technical Committe (STC) recently approved the setting up of two more such projects with a combined generation capacity of 39 Mw.This will take the envisaged generation capacity in the bio-mass sector of the state to 129 Mw.
Meanwhile, five developers who have inked MoU with OREDA have deposited their security money aggregating Rs 2.75 crore with the nodal agency.
They are Satya Bio-Power Industry Ltd planning to set up a 10 Mw plant in Ganjam, A V N Power Projects setting up a 10 Mw power plant in Kalahandi district and Prasad Bio-Energy planning a 10 Mw unit in Raygada.
While Jaylaxmi Bio-Energy Ltd plans to set up a 10 Mw unit in Nayagarh, another plant of similar capacity by Andhavarapu Bio-Energy will come up in Nawarangpur.
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The remaining developers like Sampath Power Projects Ltd and Falcon Green Energy Ltd proposing 10 Mw capacity each in Khurda and Puri respectively are likely to deposit the security money soon. The government will soon go for signing of the implementation agreement with those developers for starting their projects, sources added.
Further, to weed out the non-serious players, the government has tightened the norms for security deposit by the developers of this kind of project. Accordingly, the developer is required to deposit a commitment fee of Rs 5 lakh per Mw at the time of signing of the agreement.
Though states like Chhattisgarh were able to generate about 135 Mw from bio-mass based power plants, Orissa was unable to utilize its potential in this sector. In this backdrop, the science and technology department has initiated a series of measures for development of this sector.
On the other hand, to attract the private investment to this sector, the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) has also fixed the tariff for solar grid connected photo voltaic power in the state. While the tariff has been fixed at Rs 15 per KWH from the first year to 12th year, this will be Rs 7.5 per KWH from 13th to 25th year, sources added.