Question : DECENTRALIZED RENEWABLE ENERGY PROJECTS

(a) whether decentralized renewable energy solutions offer effective solution for meeting the increasing power demand in the un-electrified and under-serviced areas;

(b) if so, the details thereof;

(c) whether the Government has undertaken any assessment of power requirement in such areas that may be met through decentralized renewable energy solutions;

(d) if so, the details thereof; and

(e) the steps taken by the Government to augment power supply through decentralized renewable energy projects in such areas, especially in eastern and north-eastern States?

THE MINISTER OF NEW AND RENEWABLE ENERGY (DR. FAROOQ ABDULLAH)

(a)& (b): Decentralized renewable energy systems can help in supplementing the energy/ electricity needs in areas that are un-electrified or are facing shortage of electricity. Their viability is region/ location specific and depends on several factors, particularly the available renewable resources potential, the scale and pattern of the power demand and the socio-economic conditions.

A large number of different types of renewable energy systems/ devices have already been deployed in various parts of the country for supplementing cooking, lighting and electricity needs. Cumulative deployment as on 30.6.2011 is as under :

# Around 6446 remote villages and 1587 hamlets covered with mainly solar home lighting systems

# 8,35,204 no. SPV lanterns, 7,48,676 nos. SPV homelights, 2,04523 nos. SPV Street lights, 7373 nos. SPV pumps and 9.10 MWp aggregate capacity of Stand-alone SPV power plants

# 1,397 nos. micro hydel plants/ water mills with an aggregate power generation capacity of 6.98 MW
# Biomass Gasifiers with an aggregate power generation capacity of 14.80 MWeq
# 112 nos. Biogas–to-power plants with an aggregate power generation capacity of 1.56 MW

(c)&(d): The extent to which decentralized energy systems can supplement the power needs in a given area is limited by the availability of renewable energy resources in that area, resource-wise general assessment of which is available for different geographical regions. Area/ site - specific assessment is a usually undertaken by project developers at stage of preparation of feasibility reports for the projects.

(e): The Government is encouraging community as well as private sector involvement in setting up projects for decentralized power generation from different renewable energy resources, mainly - biomass, wind, small hydro and solar. Central Financial Assistance is being provided for such projects, level of which is resource and region specific. The same varies from about 10% to 90% of the project cost, the higher level being given for projects in North Eastern Region / Special Category States. Details of existing level of Central Financial Assistance being provided under different off-grid/decentralized renewable energy programmes/ schemes are given in the Annexure.