Dr Farooq Abdullah union minister for new & renewable energy unveiled the guidelines of two schemes under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission at a function in New Delhi today. These are guidelines for off grid (photovoltaic & thermal) and decentralized solar applications and Rooftop & other small solar power plants.
Terming the event as a result of many months of consultation, toil and effort, the Minister said his Ministry, in its facilitative role, has created an enabling ecosystem for promoting newer business models, technical as well as market innovations as well as for promoting basic and applied research and it is for the entrepreneurs and stakeholders to rise to the challenge.
Dr Abdullah recalled the words of Dr Manmohan Singh PM of India on the launch of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in January this year when he termed it as one of the major priorities of the second term of his government and expressed his sincere hope that the Mission would establish India as a global leader in solar energy, not just in terms of solar power generation but also in solar manufacturing and generation of this technology. He said that “Today we are taking the first step towards the operationalisation of the Mission. Even as we speak we are on way to redeeming the many of the pledges and promises we made in January this year.”
He said that “The guidelines that we have released today are meant to tap into the diverse and enormous potential of solar energy in all applications-rural, industrial as well as urban. The guidelines are flexible, simple and market friendly. Taken together, these guidelines seek to address four critical areas access to rural households for lighting and daily power requirements; reduction in consumption of kerosene and diesel; energy demand management through solar thermal systems and improvement of efficient transmission by feeding power at consumption points.”
The minister said that “We have attempted to make the process demand-driven, market-based and user-benefit oriented. We have tried to establish additional channels to facilitate direct contact between users and the supplier of solar energy products. Thus there is a broadening of the market and reach. These guidelines provide enough opportunities to manufacturers, system integrators, energy supply companies and also the financial institutions to create a sustained interest within the investor community through viable business models. Flexibility is an integral feature of this scheme. I hope these guidelines will help us to reach a larger number of potential users.”
Dr Abdullah said that the Ministry had unveiled a migration policy under the National Solar Mission to give a head start to setting up grid connected solar power plants. NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam had invited applications from project developers who were at an advanced stage of preparedness. The Minister said that NVVN, after a scrutiny of the applications, is now ready to announce the eligible developers and shall be formally issuing awards to them shortly. He said that his Ministry is working closely with stakeholders to facilitate the creation of an ecosystem that will encourage the growth of this nascent sector, reliably, quickly and at reasonable profit to developers.
Dr Abdullah said that off grid solar energy applications have a tremendous potential in reaching out to people in such rural and remote areas by providing basic energy services to them.
The Minister pointed out that merely by distributing solar lanterns in remote areas and to nomadic populations, we can light up over a million homes. Similarly 1 million streetlights can illuminate streets in over 100,000 villages. These efforts, he said that will also save the environment as 10 million lanterns can save 50 crore liters of kerosene in a year, which in turn can mitigate a potential subsidy bill of INR 1,000 crore to INR 1,500 crores in a year. Further, the huge entrepreneurial potentialities thrown up by the rapid adoption of these systems will create thousands of jobs as well as self-employment opportunities.
