NEW DELHI: The solar farm scheme will serve two purposes: protect the green belt on the capital’s periphery as demarcated in Master Plan Delhi 2021 from being sold off as real estate and generate clean energy at the same time. Varsha Joshi, secretary (power), shared some highlights of the scheme with TOI on the sidelines of a stakeholder consultation workshop. “The scheme will ensure that greenbelt villages continue to remain green and are not sold off. Residents in these green villages are eagerly waiting for this policy. The farmer should also make money out of it,” Joshi said.
Green-belt villages provide for agricultural land along Delhi’s borders. The master plan allows dairy or poultry farms, parks and agro-forestry at these locations. The existing habitation in about 47 villages will stay. The power department will work with the revenue department to aggregate demand for solar energy that will be then supplied to a solar farm developer. The solar developer will reimburse farmers for the land used for the projects. The farmers can continue their farming activity as well.
Punjab government had recently approved the launch of a pilot project for solar energy generation on agricultural land on a rental basis. While the solar farm scheme is part of Delhi’s larger policy to move towards clean energy and maintaining green areas, Delhi government announced a vision to generate more than 1,000 MW of solar energy by 2020 and 2,000 MW by 2025. A key component will be adoption of rooftop solar model by the residential or domestic sector, Joshi said at the stakeholders meeting supported by the Sustainable Partnerships for Rooftop Solar Acceleration in Bharat, a World Bank-SBI Rooftop SolarTechnical Assistance programme.
Delhi has an installed capacity of 100 MW, but the contribution from the domestic sector is meagre. One of the reasons for this is a lack of knowledge and understanding about solar projects. The other problem is that installation of solar rooftop projects involves a lot of paperwork. This will now be addressed through a demand aggregation programme, Joshi said.
The European Union has helped the ministry of new and renewable energy create a portal for facilitation of consumer with vendors, with tips on how to apply for rooftop projects and get financial assistance. The portal, which will have a separate page for Delhi, is likely to be up in a couple of months.
Joshi said the government believed that RESCO — under which a consumer can install a solar power plant and not pay anything upfront — was a more successful model. It is a low-cost intensive option compared to the CAPEX model where the entire system is owned by rooftop owners. Delhi government is now trying to come up with a framework where even individual households can opt for the RESCO model.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes
