Power Finance and Rural Electrification, under the Indian government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, will provide financial assistance for the installation of 1,000MW solar power in India by the year 2013.
“We would be able to generate 500MW of solar-thermal power and another 500MW from photovoltaic cells in the next three years,” said power minister Sushilkumar Shinde and renewable energy minister Farooq Abdullah.
The Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy have also unveiled the guidelines for selection of new grid connected solar power projects. “PFC and REC would finance some of these projects,” Shinde said, adding that Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) will also help with the funding of these projects.
In order to have wider participation from solar power developers, only one application per company, including its parent, affiliate or group company, shall be permitted for development of a single project. According to the guidelines, each project must be at least 5MW.
“These guidelines are timely and topical and are bound to give a strong impetus to the solar industry both in terms of marketing and manufacturing perspective to achieve the solar mission target,” said Moser Baer India chairman and managing director, Deepak Puri.
Under JNNSM, the Indian government has set a target of generating 20,000MW of solar electricity by 2022. The target would be implemented in three phases, phase I up to 2012-13, phase II from 2013-2017 and phase III from 2017-2022. The country currently produces less than 5MW of solar power annually.
