Tamil Nadu tops renewable energy capacity addition: Assocham-EY paper

With addition of new capacity of Renewable Energy (RE) in Tamil Nadu, RE's projected contribution to reach even 72% of its peak demand by 2022, according to a joint Assocham-EY paper.

The state has an installed capacity of over 8,300 Mw of non-conventional energy, which is about 40% of the total capacity installed including the conventional sources of thermal and hydro.

The problem remains about a huge gap between the installed RE capacity and its actual generation. Against the 40% ratio of the installed capacity, the RE sources supply just about 14% of the state's peak demand, thanks to inadequate infrastructure to evacuate the power to the grid and the natural limitations, said in the report.

The Assocham-EY paper pointed out that against peak electricity demand of 29,975 Mw, the projected installed capacity of the RE resources would be 21,508 Mw.

Assocham, Secretary General, D S Rawat said: "Let us give credit to the state for a laudable work done in the area of non-conventional energy.The other progressive states in the area of RE are Gujarat, Rajasthan and Rajasthan. But the interest is still limited to a few states. If only rest of the states follow and exploit the abundant natural resources of wind, energy and bio-mass, India can be on top of the world league for green economy."

Tamil Nadu is adding capacity beyond its demand."This beckons for a robust market mechanism to accommodate RE power within the state and also explore market mechanism to trade its power to the RE deficit states," the paper suggested.

Moreover, aggressive increase in the state RE capacity explains that the state should sufficiently use conventional capacity indigenously or through bilateral trade agreements for balancing the variable RE.