Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission

In January 2010, the UPA Government had launched National Solar Mission ( which was later renamed as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission) with an aim to install the solar power generation capacity of 20,000 MW by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan in 2022. This plant was to be completed in three phases as follows:

• Phase-I 2010-2013 target 1,000-2,000 MW.
• Phase-II 2013-2017 target 4,000-10,000 MW.
• Phase-III 2017-2022 target 20,000 MW.

The NDA Government has scaled up the target to five fold at 1,00,000 MW (100GW) to be achieved by 2022. There are two separate targets to be achieved viz. 40 GW Rooftop and 60 GW through Large and Medium Scale Grid Connected Solar Power Projects. If this target is achieved, India would be one of the largest Green Energy producers in the world and would be surpassing several developed countries.

Salient Features of the mission

The mission would involve total investment of Rs. 6 Lakh Crore in the installation of 100GW of solar power. Currently, the mission

The total investment in setting up 100 GW will be around Rs. 6,00,000 Crore. Out of this, a significant amount of Rs. 90,000 Crore would be invested using the so called Bundling Mechanism with thermal power.

What is Bundling Mechanism?

The thermal energy giant NTPC will built its own 3300MW solar power capacity and would tender another 3000MW under this power bundling scheme. The meaning of power bundling is that NTPC would tender private players to produce solar energy and would bundle that energy with thermal energy to sell at an average rate. We note that NTPC would bring in two solar parks, one at Anantpur in Andhra Pradesh and another at Conoon in Tamil Nadu with 1500 and 1000MW capacity respectively.

Support Interventions

[currentuser_id]T0 achieve the massive target, the government would provide the following support interventions:

• Changes in land use regulations and tenancy laws to faciliate aggregation and leasing of land by land holders / farmers for solar projects
• Identification of large lands, government offices for rooftop projects
• Clear survey of wastelands and identification of transmission infrastrucre
• Develop a Green Energy Corridor (solar power transmission network is being called corridor here)
• Setting up exclusive parks for domestic manufacturing of solar PV modules
• Making provisions of 10% renewable energy and rooftop SPV mandatory for constructions in urban areas
• Making changes in building bye-laws to make mandatory provisions for rooftop solar power in new constructions
• Considering infrastructure status for solar projects
• Tax free solar bonds
• Make rooftop a part of housing loans
• Amend the Electricity Act for strong enforcement of Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) and for providing Renewable Generation Obligation (RGO)
• Integrate the measures with Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS)
• Bring down / eliminating customs and excise duty on solar power inputs.

Critical Examination

Currently, India has little over 4GW of installed solar capacity. In order to reach 100GW by 2022, the installed capacity would need to double every 1.5 years. This implies that the installed capacity needs to grow by some 62%. During the tenure of the earlier government, the speed of execution was tardy. The effective and speedy implementation need clear cut policy regime. Given the fact that less than 1% of the uncultivated land of the country can be used to install a 60GW solar capacity, the target seems to be massive but not impractical target. Since most such projects need land to be implemented, the central role has to be played by the state governments as land comes under their powers. Some states such as Gujarat and Karnataka have created land banks while some other states such as Rajasthan is giving land on 25 years lease. Such state driven initiatives are key to success of this mission. Further, long term, low interest debt finance; proactive role of power ministry in expanding the Green Corridors and exemptions from  taxes, charges etc. help for quick implementation of the project.

The mission also includes installation of 40GW rooftop PVs in India. Government would need to provide impetus to production of domestic solar cells by giving various incentives. Currently, India’s production of solar cells is not competitive and faces massive competition from Chinese solar cells.