State firms up plans for solar power foray

Tata BP Solar, BHEL in race for Rs 225 cr project.

Power-starved Karnataka, which is planning to add 5,000 megawatt power to its grid in the next five years, has firmed up plans to tap natural resources like sunlight and wind to augment its power producing capacity. Towards this direction, the state-owned Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (KPCL) took the first step by laying the foundation stone for the country’s first ever 3-Mw solar photovoltaic power plant at Yelesandra village in Bangarpet taluk of Kolar district during the weekend.

In all, KPCL is taking up three solar power projects on a pilot basis in the state at an estimated cost of Rs 225 crore. The other two projects will be set up at Itnal village in Chikodi taluk of Belgaum district and in Shikaripur taluk of Shimoga district. Each of these three projects will supply 3 Mw of power during the day, between 11 am and 5 pm, to the state grid, which is sufficient to charge around 400 irrigation pumpsets and irrigate 1,200 acres of land.

According to KPCL officials, tenders have been floated for two of the three projects in Kolar and Belgaum districts. So far, 24 companies, both domestic and international, have participated in the tender, including Tata BP Solar, BHEL, Sun Technics, Iso Photon of Spain, Zecon Solar of USA among others.

“These companies have submitted pre-qualifying requirements and we expect at least 10-15 companies to qualify and the lowest bidder will be awarded the contract. We are presently looking at executing these three projects on a pilot project basis and depending on the success we will go in for even bigger projects elsewhere in the state,” a senior KPCL official told Business Standard. Many global firms have shown interest in investing in Karnataka and setting up solar power plants upto 50 Mw capacity, they said.

He said KPCL will use Solar Photovoltaic Modular Crystalline technology for this project and for each plant the corporation requires 15 acres and there will be no acquisition of land from farmers. These projects will be completed and commissioned by the next Kannada Rajyotsava on November 1, 2009, the sources said.

Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa laid the foundation stone for the first of the three projects at Yelesandra village in Kolar district on Friday. The power produced from the plant will be supplied to the state grid through a 11 kv transmission line, which is about 100 metres from the proposed plant.

Presently, the cost of each megawatt will be in the range of Rs 25 crore and the KPCL aims to fund these projects through its own internal accruals and plans to claim concessions from the Centre under the Income Tax Act. “Since the project falls under the renewable energy project, we are entitled to 100 per cent income tax concessions during the first year of the project.

This means our cash flow will be less and the per megawatt cost could come down to as low as Rs 18 crore instead of Rs 25 crore. We are also assured of an equity participation by the state government in the project to an extent of 20 per cent. The exact cost of the project will be ascertained only after discounting all these factors,” official sources said.

KPCL also plans to claim carbon credits for these projects.