VIJAYAWADA
Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy and Power R.K. Singh replied to a question posed by YSR Congress Party MP Parimal Nathwani in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, July 20, 2022 that Andhra Pradesh (AP) has a total Renewable Energy (RE) installed capacity of nearly 10,826 Megawatts (MW) as on June 20 this year.
Mr. Singh said the State’s RE capacity includes 4,096.65 MW of wind power, 4390.48 MW solar, 1,610 MW large hydro power, 566.04 MW biopower and 162.11 MW of small hydro power.
Asked about RE generation in the country, various existing schemes and new schemes proposed to be launched by the Central government, Mr. Singh said the Centre launched the PM-Kusum scheme to promote small grid connected solar energy power plants, stand-alone solar powered agricultural pumps and solarisation of existing grid connected agricultural pumps.
He stated that the scheme is not only beneficial to the farmers but also to the States and DISCOMs. The States would be able to save on subsidies being provided to agriculture consumers and the DISCOMs would get cheaper solar power at the tail-end saving transmission and distribution losses.
Under the Scheme for Development of solar parks and Ultra-Mega Solar Power Projects with a target of setting up 40,000 MW capacity, the developers have a plug-and-play benefit as infrastructure such as land, roads, transmission system (internal and external) and water pipelines is developed with all statutory clearances/approvals.
Further, the Union Minister said the government has launched the National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules for achieving manufacturing capacity on a Gigawatt scale. Under the Rooftop Solar Programme Phase-II for grid connected solar rooftop power plants, subsidies are given for the residential sector and performance linked incentives to DISCOMs for achieving capacity addition.
