Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh unveiled the draft of its Solar Energy Policy-2022 on August 19, which suggests that the State will be targeting generation of 16,000 Mega Watt of renewable power by 2026-27.
The policy was released by the Uttar Pradesh New and Renewable Energy Development Agency (UPNEDA), the State's nodal agency for renewable energy.
The government has proposed to meet the ambitious 16,000 MW target by generating 4,000 MW from solar rooftop projects, 2,000 MW from distributed solar generation and the rest (10,000 MW) from utility/grid scale solar projects and solar parks.
Under the proposed policy, the government will develop 20 solar cities covering 10 lakh households with rooftop installations. The cities to be developed as ‘solar cities’ include Meerut, Varanasi, Bareilly, Moradabad, Saharanpur, Firozabad, Mirzapur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Agra, Ghaziabad, Jhansi, Muzaffarnagar, Mathura, Azamgarh, Ayodhya and Aligarh. The proposed draft policy may get the Cabinet nod as soon as the 2017 solar policy completes its five-year term.
The draft also proposes rooftop solar installations in government buildings and in more than 21,000 unelectrified primary schools in the State.
“The policy aims to develop solar parks, promotion of small decentralized grid connected solar power, promotion of solar installations along expressways and railway tracks and strengthening of transmission network for evacuation of solar projects by development of Green Energy Corridor in Bundelkhand region,” the draft proposal reads.
The draft also proposes a subsidy of ₹15,000 per kilowatt to a maximum limit of ₹30,000 per consumer to promote large-scale rooftop solar installations. Under the proposed policy, solar installations along the six expressways will also be set up.
The draft also argues that Uttar Pradesh has largely untapped potential and availability of vast barren/uncultivable unutilised government/private land. This has potential to make Uttar Pradesh a highly preferred destination for solar energy at the global level. The objective of the policy is to provide low-cost and reliable power and reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. It also aims to achieve “optimal energy mix” of conventional and renewable power, ensuring energy security in the State and hassle-free environment for private sector investment in the field of solar energy generation.
In the 2017 solar power policy, the State had fixed a target of generating 10,700 MW by 2022, but less than 3,000 MW has been achieved.
