Chhattisgarh, a power surplus state in the country, is now surging ahead to boost renewable energy by focusing on promotion of solar and wind energy.
Informing about the same chairman, Chhattisgarh State Power Company Shailendra Shukla, claimed that Chhattisgarh is one of the power surplus states in the country, with five times more power generation than the actual demand (in terms of installed capacity).
He informed that the demand from the DISCOM side is hardly 5,000 MW and the total power generation in the state is about 22,000 to 23,000 MW.
Further briefing about future plan, Shukla said “The state will soon achieve an installed capacity of 30,800 MW. The efforts are being made on promoting renewable energy significantly in the state with the focus on solar and wind energy. The important aspect of renewable energy is its decentralized generation and decentralized consumption”.
“One can generate power through renewable energy to the tune of demand”, he added.
Chhattisgarh currently has an installed capacity of 4,500 MW of renewable energy which includes solar, wind, biomass among others. To fulfill the chief minister’s vision of affordable power, solar energy with storage of Rs 4 per unit is being explored with new MoUs, and further improvement in technology for long term, solar and wind energy with storage is cheaper than thermal power, he added.
“Whenever the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited or any other ministry floats the tender to meet the RTO, the condition says that they can set up the plant anywhere in the country”, Shukla said.
He said that the grid distribution issue will increase as the state goes towards the solar and wind power adding that at times there is a situation when there is suddenly a demand of 200MW power and to fulfill the demand they shutdown electric power in at least three blocks.