Punjab woos FIs for solar power development

Punjab's New and Renewable Energy Minister Bikram Singh Majithia today urged banks and financial institutions to provide easy credit to solar power developers in the state and launched a special package for solar rooftops.
Presiding over a meeting with lead financial institutions and banks like IREDA, Power Finance Corporation, L&T Infra Finance, IDBI, ADB, NABARD, Bank of India, Tata Power Solar along with state officials, Majithia informed that Punjab has taken major initiatives in launching innovative programmes in the new and renewable energy sector with a view to enhancing clean and green power generation capacity in the state.
He pointed out that Punjab was actively promoting and facilitating setting up of ground based, rooftop based, canal top based/reservoir based solar PV power generation systems.

The Minister said the state's present NRSE power generation capacity was 811 MW and it was planned to take this capacity to 5,400 MW by 2022. The initiative of launching farmer scheme for solar power generation of total capacity 500 MW was highlighted.
He called upon senior officials of financial institutions and banks to actively participate in state's renewable energy initiative which has an estimated investment potential of Rs 33,000 crore and out of which Rs 23,000 crore was the financing requirement for setting up of these NRSE projects.
Majithia invited FIs to come forward with innovative solutions to provide excess to credit for Development of RE projects as it was the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have 100 GW of Solar power capacity in the country which can only be possible with active support of financial institutions which would provide financing for high quality solar panels and other equipments.

He stressed on providing an exclusive financial product for supporting roof-top projects under net metering as the future for the country lies in every household generating its own clean and green energy.

This will also help in providing power during peak hours for industrial growth, he said and urged banks to provide credit as easily as that provided for purchasing a new car.
Majithia highlighted Punjab's potential in biomass sector and farm based solar projects.
Secretary, New & Renewable Energy, Anirudh Tewari explained about the 1,000 MW potential of canal top and reservoir based projects in the state, saying although its initial cost was higher, it would save fertile land and help in water conservation.