The Chief Minister of Gujarat-Vijay Rupani recently announced the new solar power policy for the state that will be valid for the next five years.
Gujarat solar power policy 2021 has multiple incentives to move towards green energy and reduce the share of coal-based power.
Under the new solar power policy the consumers will now be able to lease their premises or rooftops to third parties for setting up plants to generate and consume power in the same premises. It has also done away with the ceiling on installed capacity.
As per the state’s new solar power 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. However, this move may not go down with small producers as net metering has always been real attraction for them.
The security deposit by a developer to a power distribution company (DISCOM), has been reduced from Rs 25 lakh per MW to Rs 5 lakh per MW under the policy.
For other consumers, the surplus power will be purchased at 75 per cent of latest tariff discovered and contracted by GUVNL through competitive bidding process for non-park-based solar projects in preceding six months which shall remain fixed for the project life of 25 years.
Estimated savings of the residential consumers will be in the range of Rs 1.77 – Rs 3.78 per unit, industrial and commercial (captive) in the range of Rs 2.92 – Rs 4.32 per unit and industrial and commercial (third-party sale) in the range of Rs 0.91 – Rs 2.30 per unit.
To encourage small-scale solar projects (up to 4 MW), power DISCOMs, under the new policy, will now purchase power from those projects at 20 paise per unit tariff higher than tariff discovered through competitive bidding. As on March 2020 Gujarat had installed 50,915 subsidized rooftop solar plants in the residential segment – which is highest in the country.
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