'Telangana pioneered distributed solar model'

Hyderabad: Telangana has adapted decentralised distributed solar plants constructed at the load point by which it saved the transmission losses and also helped in maintaining of Grid stability, said an expert.

Speaking at RenewX 2019 conference and expo here, Ajay Mishra, Special Chief Secretary, Telangana said: The State government has saved more than Rs 500 crore by adopting the distributed solar photo voltaic project model as opposed to the solar park model mooted few years ago.

While Rs 450 crore was saved as no separate transmission network was created to evacuate power, Rs 50 crore were saved through reduced transmission & distribution (T&D) losses per annum."

"The solar model floated for 50 MW and 100 MW plants after evaluating the demand and supply scenario for each district has now become a role model for other states to follow," he added.

The model has helped Telangana to set up 3,600 MW of solar projects in the State second to Karnataka in terms of solar capacity installation.

Mishra said that the draft for the electric vehicle (EV) policy is ready and is likely to be launched post-elections. G Raghuma Reddy, CMD, TS Southern Power Distribution Company Limited, said:"Telangana has more than 25 lakh agriculture pump sets and the demand goes up during the farming season. A demand supply gap assessment was made across all the districts and based on the gap, tenders were floated, and projects implemented."

The State has done a commendable job in increasing its renewable energy capacity from less than 50 mw during State formation to 3,873 mw currently.

"The current installed solar capacity is 3602 MW,making Telangana thestate with the largest installed capacity of solar," he said and added, "Another 1590 MW of renewable capacity additions are planned tobe added by the end of 2019.

Overall the state is targeting a capacity of 5 GW from all forms ofrenewable energy by 2020."

"Government of Telangana is also focusing to tap the potential the vacant rooftop spaces and promote the generation of solar power. With the above, it makes Telangana as a renewable energy hub," he added.

RenewX is organized by UBM, which in June 2018 combined with Informa PLC to become a leading B2B information services group and the largest B2B Events organiser in the world.