Thursday, November 27, 2014: The UP government together with the NTPC is set to develop a 375MW solar power park with an estimated investment of Rs. 30,000 million in Jalon district, with the main objective of meeting the power crisis in the state. The State government has decided to hand over almost 750 hectare land to NTPC in Jalon to develop the solar park in a phased manner. For this, NTPC will have to pay nominal rent on lease to the state government.
The senior official said up on this, “The ministry of new and renewable energy under has launched a scheme for developing 25 ultra mega solar power projects, or solar parks, each with a capacity of 500 MW to 1,000 MW in five years, targeting around 20,000 MW of installed capacity.” He further added, “Out of these 25 solar parks, one is in UP and we have identified land in Jalon district. The project will be a joint venture between NEDA, which is the nodal agency for UP, and the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). NTPC will be the implementing agency.”
NTPC had recently signed a deal with the Andhra Pradesh government for developing 1000MW solar projects on build-own-operate basis. However, since UP has only 4.1 per cent which is least in the country, it couldn’t proving an appropriate land ratio. An official said that, “This is why we want NTPC to decentralise the solar park and make it in smaller pockets where a vast area of land is not available. We only have about 750 hectare in Jalon and are trying to identify more patches of 100 hectare that can be offered to NTPC. So far, we have identified 100 hectare in Sonbhadra, Mirzapur and Allahabad.” Other than the 375-MW project in Jalon, districts like Sonbhadra, Mirzapur and Allahabad are also expected to get 50 MW of projects for each.
