Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, Raj Kumar Singh, in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, informed about the major policy initiatives undertaken after June 2014 for increasing the share of renewable energy in total installed capacity.
Major policy initiatives taken by the government to increase the share of renewable energy are as under: –
- Announced a cumulative target of 175 GW renewable energy based electric installed capacity of 100 GW solar power installed capacity;
- Issued guidelines for procurement of solar and wind power through tariff based competitive bidding process;
- Declared Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) up to the year 2018-19;
- Declared Renewable Generation Obligation on new coal/lignite based thermal plants;
- Notified National Offshore Wind Energy Policy;
- Notified policy for Repowering of Wind Power Projects;
- Notified standards for deployment of solar photovoltaic systems/devices;
- Issued order for waiving the Inter State Transmission System charges and losses for inter-state sale of solar and wind power for projects to be commissioned by March 2019;
- Launched Atal Jyoti Yojna for Solar LED Street Lights in five States; and
- Launched Surya Mitra programme for developing a cadre of trained manpower for deployment of solar energy projects.
The above initiatives resulted in significant increase in renewable energy deployment. In October 2017 the cumulative renewable power installed capacity was 60.98 GW. Of this, 26 GW renewable power installed capacity was added from April 2014 to October 2017, the Minister added.
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