Solar power

The decisions taken by the Assam Cabinet meeting at Tezpur on Saturday are worth noting.
Solar power

The decisions taken by the Assam Cabinet meeting at Tezpur on Saturday are worth noting. The most significant among them is the decision to boost power production through the use of solar energy. As was announced by the Chief Minister himself, his government has set up a joint venture company with NLC India Ltd for executing a 1,000-MW solar power project in the state with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore. According to him, a 5,000-bigha plot of land has been already identified for the purpose in the Dima Hasao district. This project is to be developed by a joint venture company to be formed by the Assam government and Neyveli Lignite Corporation (now NLC India Ltd), which is a 'Navratna' PSU under the coal ministry. This decision has come close on the heels of the inauguration of a 70-MW solar power plant at Amguri near Sivasagar, the biggest solar power generation facility in the entire Northeast to date. The Rs 300-crore Amguri solar park project is executed by a private power company as a solar power developer, with the government-owned Assam Power Generation Corporation acting as a solar power park developer. A few more solar power units with a total capacity of 100 MW in different parts of the state are also being commissioned in the next couple of months. While Assam currently requires 2,200 MW of power to provide electricity to all households and industrial units every day, the state's output is not even half of it. Last year the new renewable energy minister had informed Lok Sabha that Assam has a renewable energy potential of 14,487 MW, of which solar energy has the highest potential in the state with 13,760 MW capacity, followed by biomass with 279 MW, wind energy with 246 MW, and small hydro projects with 202 MW. Meanwhile, even as the Assam Renewable Energy Policy, 2022 is in the pipeline, the State government has already signalled the tea estates to install Rooftop Solar Power Plants. In Guwahati, the government should make it mandatory for all apartment buildings to install Rooftop Solar Power facilities.

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