January 20, 2015: India is aiming high for solar power projects and rooftop installations, but these are not a long term solution for India as it would result in huge cost for supplying electricity, Ratul Puri, chairman, Hindustan Power Projects reportedly said in a interaction with PTI.
He observed that working on rooftop plants of any scale or size or even the larger 1GW plants will not prove to be fruitful for India as it would incur high transmission costs. These views have also been shared by the government.
These solutions have proved to be right for developed nations including Germany but in India is a challenge as the cost per unit, first would be double in residential rooftop i.e. Rs 14-15 and the landscape would change around houses over the years. Moreover, it is a challenge to distribute power or even meter the use.
While the MNRE is facilitating setting up of grid connected rooftops to generate larger quanitities of solar energy and also promoting development of solar parks and ultra mega solar power projects in the country, Ratul Puri observes that India should rather follow the distributed model, 20-100 MW, that is the quantum of energy that will get consumed locally.
Hindustan Power Projects, according to Ratul Puri, has an installed capacity of 500MW plans to add another 1,500MW by end of 2016.
