India can easily achieve 200 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022 as against the "conservative target" of 175 GW, Power Minister R K Singh said today while unveiling the roadmap for clean energy.
Buoyed by the success of reverse auction of renewables, which resulted in tariffs dropping to all time low rates, Singh also unveiled the plan to auction up to 21 GW solar and wind capacity by March 2018.
On the RE capacity addition, he said: "175 GW of Renewable Energy by 2022 is a very conservative target. India can easily achieve 200 GW of renewable capacity by 2022."
There was a long pending demand from the industry to declare the renewable energy roadmap, he said at a press conference to unveil solar and wind energy capacity addition plan of the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE).
"Hence, today, with the declaration of this trajectory, the government has clearly spelt out its plan of speeding up of RE installation in country and strengthening the RE manufacturing base in India," he added.
Singh said that in order to encourage 'Make in India' in the RE sector, the MNRE is working on a scheme and will issue Expression of Interest (EoI) for establishing domestic manufacturing facilities for up to 20 GW.
He further said that MNRE is exploring innovative ways to achieve additional installed RE capacity through floating solar power plants (FSPP) over dams, offshore wind energy systems (OWES) and hybrid solar-wind power systems (HSWPS), which may provide over 10GW additional capacity.
The MNRE team of experts has already surveyed the Bhakra Nangal dam for FSPPs and Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for wind power plants, Singh said.
Talking about the issues in Power Purchase Agreements, he said the sanctity of the PPAs have to be ensured and they would have to be mandatorily honoured.
The ministry is in constant discussions with state governments, including Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, to ensure that, he said.
Talking about the Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPOs), the minister said that these obligations are mandatory and need to be adhered to strictly.
Elaborating the RE Development road map , MNRE Secretary Anand Kumar said that for achieving 100 GW solar power target by 2022, the ministry, along with states, would lay out bids for ground mounted solar parks for 20 GW in 2017-18, of which 3.6 GW has already been bid out.
He said 3GW of solar energy capacities will be bid out next month, 3 GW in January, 5 GW in February and 6 GW in March.
As much as 30 GW each will be bid out in 2018-19 and 2019-20 to add 60 GW solar capacities.
Kumar said that as against the target of 60 GW for wind power, 32 GW has already been commissioned.
The central government, along with states, intends to issue bids of cumulative capacity of about 8 GW of wind capacities this year. Of this, 5 GW (including present 2 GW) has already been bid out and 1,500 to 2,000 MW will be bid out in January and as much in March.
He also informed that 10 GW will be bid out each fiscal in 2018-19 and 10 GW in 2019-20, leaving a margin of 2 years for commissioning of projects.
Kumar said that the ministry soon issue the Wind Bidding Guidelines.
He also said that with wind power tariffs becoming competitive and state DISCOMs encouraged to buy more of RE, the government has doubled the auction capacity for the third national level wind auction from 4GW last year to around 9GW in this year.
Regarding clarity on GST rates on Solar panels, Kumar said that the MNRE is in talks with the Ministry of Finance and in the next 7-10 days all the issues would be resolved.
On the occasion, Power Sale Agreements (PSA) under second wind auction were also signed between states, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and utilities of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Punjab, Goa and Odisha.
The last reverse auction for SECI-II wind bid was conducted on October 4, which resulted in very competitive tariff of Rs 2.64/2.65 per unit.
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