Saturday, January 18, 2014: India boasts more than 300 sunny days a year in some parts along with large tracts of desert while a big chunk of the nation lies near the equator. There is indeed a huge market for solar power in the country but to no avail. Even as tumbling costs fuel solar energy ambitions by leaps and bounds, solar thermal power projects are clearly not having the best of times, and if things go on on the same track, most solar thermal plants will never come up in India! This indeed comes as a wake up call for India.
The drive to harness the sun’s power began in earnest with the 2010 creation of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission by the current Congress-led UPA Government. However, atrociously low bids made by multi national companies such as Reliance and Lanco during the reverse auctions of Phase 1 of the Jawaharlal Nehru Mission mean sad days for the technology that can help curb India’s growing peak power shortage. While the solar PV developers were bailed out by the crash in the solar panel prices, nothing of the sort has occurred for the solar thermal developers. CSP technology has seen bankruptcies as solar PV costs have declined at a tremendous pace. CSP suffers from a number of disadvantages as compared to solar PV besides the cost.
Solar thermal developers have already got an extension of 10 months however, still they are no where near completing their plants. Only one developer has completed the 50 MW plant, while others are still sadly in the pipleine phases.
Amid all the fiasco, multinationals are playing a blame game by citing wrong DNI data for not completing their plants. Their excuse being they got the wrong date from the ministry on solar radiation for their plants, which will affect their return projections.
Solar power plants of Reliance Power, Lanco and others, are seeking higher tariffs saying that the data on solar radiation provided by the government was faulty which has led to lower generation. Several companies have filed petitions before the central regulator, seeking higher tariffs jut as a panel chaired by Deepak Parekh recommended compensation for Tata and Adani’s higher costs of generation. At least three solar thermal power project developers: Reliance Power subsidiary Rajasthan Sun Technique Energy, Lanco Group’s Diwakar Solar Projects and Godawari Power and Ispat owned Godavari Green Energy with mandate to commission total 250 MW of capacity have moved petitions before the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) seeking higher tariff.
