India will power close to 900 remote villages in Arunachal Pradesh bordering China using advanced off-grid renewable energy kits that will bring electricity to about 16,000 households, power minister Piyush Goyal said.
The government will later this week invite price bids from companies for the project which also involves installing more than 4,000 off-grid street lights.
The falling cost of renewable energy makes this a better power supply option in far flung areas than laying transmission lines for grid connected power which could be time consuming. Energy efficient bulbs, fans and battery back up for eight hours are part of the package.
The power minister said that the central government will make sure that state distribution utilities comply with their obligation to meet a part of the power demand with renewable energy. One way could be to disallow defaulting utilities from buying power from exchanges, said the minister.
Goyal said the central government will seek to bring more transparency in the electricity sector by creating a national power portal which will have links to all the existing applications giving real-time data in the power sector. Besides, states will be urged to disclose the merit order of their power purchase–the ranking of various power sources available at a particular time and the energy cost–to bring more transparency in how states procure power starting with the lowest cost supply.
By Baishakhi Dutta
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