Solar Parks Investment

India’s flagship environment ministry, the MNRE has turned out with a draft plan for advancement of sun based parks and ultra mega sun powered projects which will in turn lead to deployment of expansion of 20,000 MW of sun oriented solar power. India is currently implementing the ambitious solar powered National Solar Mission that seeks to make use of sun’s power and result in a gradual shift of the country’s energy economics from a fossil fuel based power sector to a renewable energy oriented economy.

As per the plan, 25 sun based stations will be established as solar parks in the following five years with an aggregate limit of around 20,000 MW. Each such park would house a solar plant ranging from 500 MW to 1,000 MW of capacity.

Some such parks in India are the Charanka Solar Park, Gujarat and Rajasthan’s Bhadla Solar Park.

A solar park is a concentrated zone of improvement of sun oriented activities. The parks are intended as joint ventures with the respective state governments while the Solar Energy Corporation of India would be the execution entity.

With the demand for huge tracts of land for the sun parks, the draft has put the onus on state governments to gain land.

India has taken a number of positive steps to promote the solar energy sector which was beginning to slump. Some of these measures included a plan boost for investment and not deciding to go ahead with the proposed anti-dumping measures against imports.

The country is expected to receive huge investments in the sector. “We expect USD 100 billion in the renewable energy sector in the next four years,” Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal had said at the Economist India summit.