Thursday, January 30, 2014: The Karnataka government stated today that it will be able to harness a minimum of 2,000 MW of power from the solar sector by 2020. The Principal Secretary to the Department of Power, Amita Prasad, said while addressing a session ‘Doing Business with/in Karnataka’ that,”… We are trying to give a projection that by 2020 we should be able to harness at least 2,000MW of power from the solar sector.”
According to a Business Standard report, the state has good potential for wind energy with over 900 projects ongoing. The energy sector and the industry must come forth for the hybrid type of park with both wind and solar. Describing the primary ingredients of the power policy, Karnataka Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee said, “First of all every single mega watt of energy produced by a solar panel will be purchased by the state electricity board.” Number two is – a solar panel on the roof of a house will have a meter that will measure what is the total amount of power drawn or given to the grid, so that you will get a bill or a check at the end of the month depending on how much you supply to the grid; this is without any limit.”
Mukherjee further stated that the state meets about Rs 70,000 million on the subsidy to farmers each year. This constitutes a very small proportion of the budget of the state. Hence, we can subsidize a bit more. We will not place limit on the non-conventional energy generated by anyone else. It will be a free market for those who generate their own energy.
He stated that the next Global Investors Meet (GIM) would be in October and it will be a special event for medium, small and micro enterprises.
