Haryana plans solar power projects

The Haryana government is planning to harness solar energy by setting up solar power projects in the state.

The power produced from these projects will be fed to the state grid for which Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA) has submitted an application with the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) for fixing of tariff.

The director of the state renewable energy department, Sumita Misra, said today that Haryana had about 320 clear sunny days in a year and the solar insolation level in the state was in the range of 5.5 KWH (kilowatt hour) to 6.5 KWH per sq metre.

"This offered a great potential for using solar energy for various thermal and electrical energy applications but the potential available from solar energy was yet to be harnessed in Mw (large) scale in the country," she said, according to an official release here.

The present generation cost through photovoltaic power generation was about Rs 15 per KWH. Though the cost of generation was on higher side, it will have good impact on the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, thus reducing the global warming.

She said that with a view to promote solar energy, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was in the process of notifying a new scheme to promote generation of power from solar energy through solar photovoltaic or solar thermal technology.

According to the new scheme, the Union ministry would provide financial assistance of Rs 12/KWH in case of solar photovoltaic and Rs 10/KWH in case of solar thermal power to the developers for encouraging them to set up the projects.

These incentives would be given as the ministry felt that Rs 15/KWH was the base line at which such projects could become realistically viable. This incentive would be in addition to the tariff decided by the state nodal agency.