SOLAR ENERGY INSTALLATION AND TARIFF OPTIONS IN INDIA: CENTRAL VS STATE GOVERNMENT

Gaurav Gupta, G. D. Agrawal

Abstract: India has a huge potential of solar energy, which can fulfill the gap of electricity demand and supply of the country. Presently harnessing the solar energy through solar PV technology is more popular than solar thermal technology in India because of easier installation and less maintenance. As solar PV technology is expensive and under developed, it requires special support by the administration body or government through its dedicated policies intending to promote it. Similarly in India also there are various schemes launched by government to promote solar energy installation and these can be divided in two parts under central government and under state government. Each of them has their own targets, policy, action plan and their installations. This paper describes and analyses the progress of both schemes (Central and State government) for solar installation in a comparative manner, and also find the required changes in policy for improvement. This paper also describes various tariff schemes adopted by the government (Central and State) like reverse bidding, FIT etc. and installations under them, again in comparative manner, also shows the best tariff option. Ultimately this paper figures out the loose points of solar policies in India, and suggests the improvement options in the policy side including better tariff scheme.

Keywords: ENERGY INSTALLATION

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0507079