To double India’s PV capacity, the country attempts to build at least 2GW solar farms starting from April this year, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
According to the report, this new proposal would take the form of four so-called “mega solar power projects,” each of them can generate capacity of more than 500 MW. On February 17th, Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram announced in a speech that an interim budget would provide funds until a new parliament is elected in national polls due by May.
As the rising cost of electricity has become an electoral issue, 15% of about 800 million Indian voters can cast ballots for this proposal. Aside from this new solar farm proposal and other existing targets, India hopes to increase domestic solar capacity by 2017 to reduce blackouts and relies on coal and gas-fired plants.
Bloomberg reported that India added 29GW of power-generation capacity between April to December. Also, India’s peak power deficit dropped to 4% in January from last January’s 11.4%, according to data from the Central Electricity Authority.