Gujarat announces new Solar Policy

Gujarat’s Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Tuesday announced the state’s new solar power policy which will be valid for the next five years. The policy has multiple incentives to reduce the share of coal-based power and move towards green energy.

It has done away with the ceiling on installed capacity and has allowed consumers to lease their premises or roofs to third parties for setting up plants to generate and consume power in the same premises.

Gujarat had installed a whopping 50,915 subsidised rooftop solar plants in the residential segment the highest in India as on 2 March, 2020. The high number of installations is linked to the state’s specific policy which had incentivised rooftop installations.

As per the new policy, the state government would purchase surplus energy from residential and micro, small and medium enterprises consumers after setting off against their consumption. This means that they would be allowed to sell their surplus power at a tariff of Rs 2.25 per unit.

Solar power association, NSEFI, welcomed the step of removing the capacity restrictions for all categories of commercial, industrial and residential consumers. According to the solar body’s Chairman Pranav R Mehta, Gujarat continues to be in the forefront in the policy initiatives for solar industry not only for large but also benefitting MSMEs.

“In order to encourage small-scale solar projects, discoms can now purchase power from them at 20 paise per unit tariff for projects up to 4 MW,” said the state government.

In 2015, the Gujarat government announced a solar policy to increase the sector’s growth and supply affordable power. Prime minister Narendra Modi had earlier this month laid the foundation of India’s largest hybrid renewable energy park of 30 Gigawatt capacity in Kutch, Gujarat.