Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Secretary Upendra Tripathy has asked the Odisha Government to immediately send detailed proposals for developing 1,000-MW Solar Parks, failing which the Union Government would be forced to transfer the allocation to the other interested States.
Tripathy, who was on an Odisha tour on February 3, has cautioned the State Government in this regard and asked to adhere to the timeline of March 2016. While other States are pressing the Union Government hard for more solar projects, Odisha is yet to send full-fledged proposals for Solar Parks.
The Union Government has stipulated RPO Percentage for all the States looking at their power requirements. Odisha would be consuming 24,810 million units (MU) of power in 2015-16; so, the RPO would be 744 MU, which constitutes solar and non-solar power.
To establish Solar Parks, the GEDCOl and the Solar Energy Corporation of India limited (SECIl) have decided to form Joint Venture (JV).
The Odisha Government informed Tripathy that the Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC India) has been appointed by the World Bank as a consultant. The PWC India would present their findings on finalisation of sites on February 11.
A PWC team has visited several sites where 100 to 200 MW Solar Parks would be developed. The places are in the sistricts Kalahandi, Deogarh, Baleswar, Keonjhar and Boudh.
Meanwhile, the Union MNRE has revised its targets for renewable energy addition, and Odisha has been allotted development of 2,377 MW of solar capacity by 2022, out of which 1,377 MW would be land-based solar projects, said sources.