Gujarat has announced five more rooftop solar photovoltaic power projects in five cities, totalling 25 MW. The State Government has advertised calling for bidders to buy the ‘request for proposal’ documents.
The five projects are divided into three packages. The first is for putting up a 5 MW plant each in Vadodara and Mehsana. The second is for a 6.5 MW project at Rajkot and a 3.5 MW one at Bhavnagar. The third is for one project of 5 MW at Surat.
All these projects would be grid-connected. The project developers would rent rooftops, put up the plants and sell the power to the state electricity distribution company, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd, and its subsidiaries. The discoms will purchase power from these developers for 25 years.
Each ‘project’ would come up on several roofs.
IFC, the arm of the World Bank that lends and invests in public and private sector projects, is the advisor to Gujarat on this initiative.
This is the second time that the government of Gujarat is coming up with projects based on the rent-a-roof concept. The first was a pilot project at Gandhinagar. Two companies – SunEdison and Azure Power – were awarded 2.5 MW projects each. The tariff at which these projects would sell their power to the state has not been disclosed.
Significance of the initiative
The announcement of the 25 MW rooftop initiative is significant because it sets a precedent for similar initiatives by other States.
Today, there are two kinds of solar power projects. One is the large, ‘utility scale’ projects, like 5 , 10, 20 or 50 MW, coming up on large tracts of land, sometimes in a dedicated solar park, as in Gujarat.
The other is distributed generation—small-sized plants that are put up on rooftops of commercial buildings and households, or in villages. These plants could be either grid connected or not. But in any case the power they produce is consumed locally.
Germany, the world leader in solar installations with over 28,000 MW of solar power plants, is almost entirely rooftop. The United States, by contrast, is a mix of utility-scale and rooftop. This is the model that looks like unfolding in India.
Many believe that the future of solar industry in India is in rooftop projects. The owner of the roof either gets a fixed rent or gets a share of the profits the developer makes.
A rooftop plant proliferation in the country also means a huge employment generation opportunity, because putting up the plants and, importantly, maintaining them, is a labour-intensive job.
Keywords: rooftop solar projects, Gujarat solar projects, Gujarat, solar energy, rent-a-roof solar project, utility scale solar project,
Comments:
As I had commented earlier on a BHEL's project at Ranipet, Solar power
on roof tops is particularly viable for individual houses since their
roof area available per sq ft area occupied is much higher compared to
multi storeyed apartments. Very roughly speaking we are looking at 250
sq ft of solar panel space per kW of power. TNEB can play a
facilitating role in a big way in getting together house owners to
set-up such facilities. Two important factors will be the clinchers:
(1) "plus-minus" tariff meters that will adjust billing vis-a-vis what
is fed back into the grid and (2) maintenance support for the facility
India should duplicate the success of any project happening in one state to that of the
other -in all the 27 states with full strength.
India is blessed with bright sun light -free unlike scandinavians.
why dont we tap it fully.
Apply the technology which is now available -if the chinese and Taiwanese can mass
produce Photovoltaic cells/panels then why india cannot?
Let us mass produce in the country with value addition and innovation and install on
every roof top as a building code -connect it to the grid and distribute.
Solar and wind farms.
If mr. modi can show us the example -why waste time?
go for it.
solar projects like this should be encouraged instead of projects like the kundakulan
nuclear project, since 1974 not one new nuclear plant was commisioned in USA,
scotland parliament in UK has passed a new resolution not a single nuclear plant will
start there, france is laid out a plant to reduce its dependency on nuclear power from
70% to 30%, Germany is closing 17 plants, japan is laid a plan to shut down its
nuclear plants by 2030,
So today, are we a market for them to sell their machinery?
Solar energy should be encouraged in our country, its clean, doesnt depend on fosil
fuels, 300 days in a year we have sun. And with proper planning and policies and
research we can be self sufficient in power within 10 years. Our banks should
immediately open up to these proposals; industries, municipalities should be
encouraged to have captive power.
This is the best and effective way to be ENERGY independent state. Balancing Renewable energy against non-renewable one.
India is picking up "rent a roof" concept which is very popular in developed countries. But my concern is about metering the power generated/consumed. Delhi happened to pull off its roof top policy a couple of years ago due to this problem.I hope Gujarat understands this.Thanks for the post.
For the last several years, Modi has been successful in projecting his
"vibrant Gujarat" as a role model of economic growth and himself as
''Vikas Purush". Though one must give due credit to Modi for his
effective skills in making projections, one must also critically
analyse this "growth story of Gujarat" based on facts and figures.
Regretfully, as one examines the facts since Modi came to power in
Gujarat in 2001, the story appears to be hollow and, at times,
contrary to what is being projected.
During 2001-04, the rate of industrial growth for Gujarat was 3.95%, and
during 2005-09, it was 12.65%. In isolation, this appears to be a
phenomenal jump, but not so when compared to some other states. During
these sub-periods, industrial growth for Orissa was 6.4% and 17.53%; for
Chhattisgarh 8.10% and 13.3%; and for Uttarakhand 18.84% and 11.63%.
Thus, the hitherto industrially backward states have far surpassed
Gujarat
Good to hear we should implement it around the country ....!!
we have space ..
we have sunlight ..
what else we need ... "a good plan"
we have great engineers working and supporting 24/7 around the country
can't they contribute... for a plan and execute around the states..!!
where is the problem to implement we should go for it ..!!
good to know,
i have a space on my roof aprox-10*10 mtr at village-shinay,tal-
gandhidham-kutch,gujarat,
now please suggest what i can do in solar further.
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