India’s geographical advantage related to sunshine and efforts are on to harness this potential source of power generation. The efforts when begun faced the challenges of high initial costs of the solar projects and funding requirements of the developers were not met. It eventually led to the slowing down of the momentum. To scale up the projects, various initiatives were rolled off, and the solar parks in India are the major one amongst those.
Some of the new solar parks in India as a concept have implemented an exclusive land leasing formula in which the ownership of the land will always remain with the farmer or the landowner. The owner will receive annual land lease payments and will also gain multiple other benefits. These advantages range from health, water, education and overall health-related initiatives through various cooperative organizations.
This model of land leasing has benefits for all the parties involved be it the government or the local farmers. For government agencies, it is practically not possible to acquire vast tracts of land needed for projects like these. Therefore, leasing is the best option to go for.
One of the largest solar parks in India and in the world is planned in Pavagada Taluk in Karnataka on the very same formula. With a capacity of 2W, it will power nearly one million households. It is an example in the case where with innovative policy measures; you eradicate the hurdles in the path of infrastructure projects. The government-public partnership is a mutually beneficial equation.
It is obvious to all now that solar parks in India will bring benefits in all ways. Firstly it is a renewable source of energy, and since the projects are massive in size, it offers economies of scale as well.
It offers various operational bottlenecks. The rays of the sun are not regular and spread evenly across all the months of the year. Predictability is one major issue here. This characteristic makes the scheduling difficult at the grid level for the power. We have to search ways to tackle it. Storing energy and relying on other power generation options during the lean periods can be explored.
The World Bank has provided assistance here. It is helping Power Grid, which is India’s central transmission utility. A green energy corridor is on the cards that will be a transmission network. It will connect all the solar parks in India. The World Bank will also share the global best practices and aid in implementing those in our country.
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