Greentech Lead India: The state of Hyderabad is mulling a policy that would allow individuals to sell their excess solar power to the state power grid.
The state is ready to offer a rate of around Rs 3.50 per unit, according to a recent Times of India report.
The power crisis in the state has opened a window of opportunities for the solar power providers in the country. Rooftop installations in commercial, government and educational segments are on rise. However, the residential sector is still struggling to deal with the economic barriers in implementation of solar energy.
The solar power generation system developers are quoting prices between Rs 1.6 lakh and Rs 1.8 lakh for a 1 KW (kilowatt) domestic rooftop solar power system. However, middle income customers in the residential sector are not able to afford this.
Currently the subsidy offered by the center is 30 percent, and the state government is planning to add another 20 percent, making the total subsidy 50 percent. Once this subsidy becomes a reality, there will be significant uptake in solar adoption, the government things.
Andhra Pradesh is planning to encourage at least 20,000 households and 5,000 commercial complexes to go for solar power systems this year alone.
Andhra Pradesh released its State Solar Policy on September 26th 2012. The operating period of the policy extends to 2017 and applies to all grid connected solar projects that sell directly to a third party or through the REC mechanism.
In order to incentivize projects AP had removed all wheeling and transmission charges and allowed banking within the time frame of a year (except between February and June or within a single day). The policy also includes exemption from Cross Subsidy Surcharges (CSS) and Electricity Duty, and a refund on Value Added Taxes (VAT) on all components of the plant and on stamp duty and registration charges on the purchase of land. RECs can be availed under the policy over and above the other incentives.