Centre doubles subsidy on solar power plants

CHANDIGARH: The Union Government has increased the subsidy on installation of solar power plants from 15% to 30%.

The Union Government has increased the subsidy on installation of solar power plants from 15% to 30%.

Santosh Kumar, Director, Science and Technology Department, Chandigarh Administration, said the decision would help UT to achieve solar power generation target, which was recently revised by the Union government. 

So far, the Chandigarh Administration and the MC have installed a total of 101 rooftop solar panels of 5 mega watt (MW) capacity each in government buildings, which also include educational institutions.

Recently, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had revised the UT’s solar power generation target from 30 MW to 100 MW by the end of year 2022.

In the latest report released by the Ministry, the UT Administration stood first in the installation of solar rooftop projects under the government category. 

Chandigarh ranks third in the overall list, which also includes private and government-sanctioned projects.

As per the list released by the MNRE recently, the UT Administration stood first in the installation of rooftop SPV plants of 4.6 million watts peak (MWp) under projects sanctioned by the Ministry. Under this category, Tamil Nadu was ranked second with 4.40 MWp and Andhra Pradesh third with 2.37 MWp.

The Chandigarh Administration’s model solar city project was recently selected as India’s solar theme for the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), which was held in Paris from November 30 to December 11.

For the first time in the country, the UT Administration had used unmanned aerial vehicle, “drone”, to capture an aerial view of all solar rooftop projects in the city.

Source: The Tribune