Harnessing Solar energy, Options for India

1.1. Government Initiatives
1.1.1. Electrification Status of Rural India
In 2005, the Government of India launched the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY),
a massive initiative towards universal electrification. The RGGVY’s mandate is to provide grid access
to villages and households that are not remote. It targets providing 1 kWh per day (considered to be
the lifeline supply) for every household by 2012, and free electricity connection to all below poverty
line (BPL) households. The installed capacity needed to provide this minimum electricity to the 69
million households will be just 6,500 MW. a Of course, it should be noted that the capacity based on
solar energy will be about 25,000 MW since the plant load factor (PLF) will be just 20% instead of
the 76% assumed in the case of conventional plants. Complementing this is the Remote Village
Electrification (RVE) programme of the MNRE, which will provide subsidy only to remote villages
and households to use renewable energy to electrify through private sector providers. Table 9 gives
the current electrification statistics.
Table 9: Rural Electrification Status of Villages
Un-electrified
as of 2009
Electrification plans
for 2009–12
Un-electrified
as of March 2012
Villages 118,499 78,256 40,243
Remote villages 18,000 5,000 13,000
Households 69 million 41 million 28 million
Note: Electrification status as of 31 March 2010, RGGVY.
Under the RGGVY, the Indian government will provide 90% of the capital expenditure and the Rural
Electrification Corporation (REC) will provide the remaining 10% to the state governments. The REC
is the designated nodal agency for the programme. Service providers will be compensated for the
first five years for operations and maintenance of the system. The overall budget for capital
expenditure for this programme under the Eleventh Plan (2007–12) is `280 billion, out of which
`5.4 billion (2% of total capex) has been designated for decentralised distributed generation (DDG).
Furthermore, the MNRE’s RVE programme has a budget of `0.30 billion in the Eleventh Plan for
decentralised solar PV systems such as home lighting systems, street lighting systems and traffic
signals.
The MNRE also has schemes like the Solar Photovoltaic Programme and the Solar Lantern
Programme, with the express intention of popularising solar-based technologies. There is also an
incentive scheme for banks and other financial institutions to provide loans for SHLS and other small
solar systems. These two schemes will lapse on the implementation of the guidelines on off-grid
applications under the JNNSM.
1.1.2. Guidelines under the JNNSM for Off-grid Solar Applications
The JNNSM envisions to have 200 MW capacity of off-grid solar applications installed by 2013 (end
of Phase 1) and overall a 2,000 MW capacity by 2022. The project implementation process has been
a Assumptions: 7% auxillary power usage, 18% technical losses, 76% PLF and 1.3 capacity utilisation factor
(CUF).
Solar Photovoltaic Applications CSTEP | Page 61