Thursday, February 13, 2014: The Uttar Pradesh Government is likely to make heap investments of nearly Rs 8,800 million in various solar power projects, spread across the entire state that will total up to 110MW of solar energy. The state targets 500MW of grid solar energy under its Solar Power Policy formulated last year. The UP New and Renewable Energy Development Agency (UPNEDA) was commissioned as the nodal agency for these solar power projects.
In 2013, the UP government signed a power purchase agreements (PPA) on the rates ranging from Rs 8.01 per unit to Rs 9.33 per unit, with developers like Essel Infraprojects for 50 MW, Moser Baer Clean Energy for 20 MW, and Azure Surya , Refex Energy, DK Infracon and Jackson Power for 10 MW each. Following which the government issued Letter of Intent (LoI) to these companies, wherein they were to complete all the mini-projects in 13 months.
Technically, a typical solar power plant project entails Rs 80 million investment per MW of the installed capacity. The initial power tariffs of these plants are variably higher, which will total cheaper for the state in the coming years. The northern state faces power demand-supply gap of nearly 20 per cent. It is now upgrading its power generation, transmission and distribution roadmap to meet future energy needs. The UPNEDA is also working on other clean energy projects like hydro and wind segments.
