Ensure renewable energy projects take-off in 30 days, Centre tells States

June 13, 2014 09:16 am | Updated 09:16 am IST - CHENNAI

A vendor arranging the solar light products at the Renergy exhibition in Chennai on Thursday. Photo: S.R.Raghunathan

A vendor arranging the solar light products at the Renergy exhibition in Chennai on Thursday. Photo: S.R.Raghunathan

The new regime at the Centre has delivered a clear-cut message to States in the area of renewable energy: see to it that projects are sanctioned and taken off in 30 days.

Indicating this at the inauguration of the three-day-long Renergy 2014 here, Sudeep Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA), who attended a meeting taken by Union Minister Piyush Goyal and Secretary of the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Upendra Tripathy with officials of State governments in New Delhi a few days ago, said the projects could be either in the form of utility scale or rooftop scale.

Mr Jain said both the State and Central governments were committed to providing required energy needs to people. Renewable energy was no longer in the fringes but it had become a part of the mainstream of energy.

Alluding to the observations made by earlier speakers who referred to coordination issues among different stakeholders, he expressed the hope that the issues would be sorted out.

Parag Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Renew Power, called for clarity on renewable purchase obligations and suggested that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission frame common regulations for all State Electricity Regulatory Commissions to follow.

S. Appavoo, Chief Electrical Inspector in the State government, referred to delegation of powers with regard to the issue of safety certificates for solar power systems. No certificates need to be taken for the systems whose capacity was up to 10 kilo watt (KW) and regional electrical inspectors had been empowered to give the certificates for the systems of up to 100 KW, he added.

Toine Van Megen, Co-founder, Auroville Consulting, who moderated the discussion, wanted more number of people to be trained in the field of renewable energy.

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