Challenging tariff levels a key concern for solar sector

Grid reliability and delays in payments by discoms in certain cases are other concern areas, says Rajat Seksaria, President and Business Head, Renewable Business, India Power Corporation Limited. in an interview with Anurima Mondal

How is India Power helping achieve India’s sustainable goals?

As part of its renewable portfolio IPCL presently has assets under operation and development of about 200 MWs. This includes assets in the area of solar power, wind power and waste to energy sectors.  Through this portfolio of projects, India Power is making its contribution in reducing the carbon footprint which is one of the corner stone of sustainable goals.

What has been the progress of India Power in wind sector? What are your future plans?

Cumulatively, India Power has commissioned and operated about 150 Mws of wind power in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka. Its first wind turbines were commissioned more than a decade ago.  We continue to evaluate economically attractive projects in this sector

How much market share are you aiming in terms of developing solar projects?

Solar sector in India has seen very aggressive bidding by several players which has often resulted in commercially unviable tariffs. We are presently evaluating small to medium size brown field solar projects. We are also open to setting up solar project under third party sale route through open access

What are the main concerns of the solar power sector that need to be addressed?

The key concern for solar sector is the commercially very challenging tariff levels presently prevalent in the sector.  In addition to this, grid reliability and delays in payments by discoms in certain cases are other concern areas.

Tell us more about these projects and the technology used. Have you set any timeline for them?

One of the new business areas, India Power is presently working on is waste to energy sector.  In this sector, we intend to set up projects for generating power from treatment of municipal solid waste. We are technologically agnostic in this sector and have been in discussions with technology providers including incineration, gasification, etc

Can you tell us about the collaborations that you have entered for your upcoming project?

We have technology partners on a project to project basis. For instance, we are likely to awarded Waste to Energy plant in cooperation with Hitachi Zosen of Japan.

Source: Energy Next