The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has taken adequate steps to promote solar energy systems and wind power, stated Piyush Goyal, Minister of state for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy in Lok Sabha today.
These include publication of booklets and articles with special issues on solar energy and wind energy, organization of awareness program through nodal agencies, rural banks and manufacturers as well as suppliers of solar systems.
The Ministry is also providing financial and fiscal incentives like preferential tariffs and generation based incentives, accelerated depreciation and concessional or nil excise and customs duties, stated the Minister.
Under the Off-grid and Decentralized Solar Applications Scheme of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, the Ministry provides capital subsidy of 30 percent of project cost in the general category states and 90 percent of the project cost in special category States.
Central and State Government Ministries and organizations can make avail of these subsidies for installing off-grid SPV power projects with a module capacity up to 500 kW restricted to standard costs.
To promote wind power projects, fiscal and promotional incentives such as concessional import duty on wind electric generator components and excise duty exemption to manufacturers are announced on private sector investment.
Besides, the income generated from wind power projects are granted a 10 years tax holiday. Preferential tariff is being provided in potential states also.
Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and other financial Institutions are providing loans for installing windmills, further stated the Minister.
Moreover, Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) located in Chennai, is ready with technical support including wind resource assessment.
The Ministry has declared a Generation Based Incentive (GBI) under which Rs. 0.50 per unit generated from wind power projects is provided to the projects with a ceiling of Rs. 1.00 crore per MW, the Minister added.
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