A Cabinet meeting presided by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah approved the changes in the solar power policy to give encouragement to harness solar energy.
Karnataka State government has amended its 2014-21 solar policy and set an ambitious target of generating 6,000 MW of solar power by March 2021.
The current installed capacity is pegged at 385 MW. The State’s solar energy potential is estimated in excess of 24,700 MW.
As per the tariff policy and targets fixed by MNRE to the State, the solar energy should constitute eight per cent of the total energy consumption, excluding hydro energy, by March 2022.
By 2021 the solar tariffs would reduce to Rs. 7.5 per unit. But in the recent bidding in Karnataka, the tariffs have come down to Rs. 5.5 per unit for distributed generation and Rs. 4.8 per unitfor large scale generation plants.
The Centre’s policy envisages that 40 per cent of the solar generation should be through rooftop.
The changes in the policy included implementation of projects with distributed generation approach spread over the State. Now, most of the solar projects concentrated around Bengaluru.
