Accessibility of big pieces of adjoining land parcels and their acquisition is among the crucial problems postponing commissioning timelines of solar energy tasks, with experts and market gamers recommending drifting solar setups as one of the options.
Besides saving land, drifting solar plants (FSPs) likewise enhance effectiveness of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, while insulating water bodies from extreme evaporation.
In a February 2020 report, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) stated that India’s tanks have 18,000 sq km of location, or approximately 1.8 million hectares, with a prospective to create 280 gigawatts solar energy through FSPs.
Last month, NLC India CMD M Prasanna Kumar informed businessline that the 500 GW non-fossil fuel capability target for 2030 needs a great deal of land, which is a limited product. Here, FSPs can be the option. Apart from saving land, they decrease water evaporation by more than 40 percent.
Land acquisition.
ICRA VP & & Sector Head (Corporate Scores) Vikram V stated that land requirement for a 1 MW capability solar job is around 4-5 acres. For wind, it’s 2-3 acres for the turbine location and another 2-3 for the gain access to location.
” Secret concern is the hold-up in land acquisition. Even after the acquisition is done, often they can return and declare more settlement,” he included.
Serentica Renewables Director Pratik Agarwal discusses that the success of any solar and wind job mostly depends upon 2 aspects– schedule of land and transmission infra for evacuation.
” Solar power needs adjoining land with ideal solar radiation levels. The requirement for a big land parcel, paired with complex approval treatments, can result in hold-ups. The whole land acquisition procedure needs state-specific treatments, intricacies around ownership and participation of numerous firms and licenses. Land for wind tasks is a lot more tough as great resource schedule is restricted to a couple of States,” he included.
Reverse auctions.
Offering more point of view, Envision Wind Power Technologies India CEO RPV Prasad stated the shift in 2017 from Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) program to reverse auctions (competitive bidding) marked a turning point in land acquisition. With Centre performing job bidding through the Solar power Corporation of India and real job application falling under the province of private States, the procedure of land acquisition ended up being more intricate.
Business obtain appropriate land for job advancement in States where tasks are being done and power evacuation requires to be effectively handled through the Central grid. Subsequently, a significant quantity of friction emerged in bidding, land acquisition, handover and evacuation of power causing considerable hold-ups in commissioning tasks, he included.
Expense restrictions.
Nevertheless, such tasks are pricey compared to ground installed ones due to greater capital requirement and upkeep expenses. Normally, a 1-MW FSP needs around 6 crore compared to 4-5 crore for a ground installed one.
ICRA’s Vikram mentioned that the expense of establishing FSP is greater, and this shows in the tariffs of around 3.3-3.5 per system seen in the States. The capital needed for these tasks is likewise greater.
For example, recently state-run SJVN bagged the Omkareshwar (Madhya Pradesh) FSP at 3.79 per system (versus regular solar energy tariffs of around 2.4-2.7 a system).
NLCIL CMD stated “The only concern is that FSPs are somewhat more expensive than ground installed due to the fact that of the drifting product, however with increasing scale its expense is slowly boiling down.”
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