Stakeholders Discuss Opportunities and Advantages Rajasthan has in RE Sector

Public sector enterprise Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited (RSMML) has issued a tender for comprehensive operation and maintenance (O&M) of the 4.9 MW wind power project at Village Barabagh, District Jaisalmer in the state of Rajasthan.

At a recent webinar hosted by FICCI, stakeholders discussed the advantages and opportunities that the state of Rajasthan has in the RE sector.

Rajasthan is home to most of the conventional and non-conventional sources of energy generation. At a recent webinar on ‘Domestic Manufacturing in the Energy Sector’ hosted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), stakeholders discussed the advantages and opportunities that the state of Rajasthan has in the RE sector.

The government of India has released its roadmap to achieve 175 GW capacity in renewable energy (RE) by 2022, which includes 100 GW of solar power and 60 GW of wind power.

The Union government is preparing a ‘rent a roof’ policy for supporting its target of generating 40 gigawatts (GW) of power through solar rooftop projects by 2022. Coal-based power generation capacity in India, which currently stands at 229.40 GW, is expected to reach 330-441 GW by 2040. In 2018-19, the total imports in the conventional power sector were around Rs 75,000 crore and USD 2.9 billion in the renewable energy segment.

All this offers a tremendous opportunity for stimulating domestic manufacturing and import substitution in the energy sector, said NK Jain, Chairman, FICCI Rajasthan Sub-Committee on MSMEs.

Vinod Bishnoi, Vice President and Project Head, India Business of Suzlon Energy said that there are 7 to 8 states in India that are suitable for generation of wind energy but Rajasthan has an advantage that alternative economic usage of the land having wind potential is limited and therefore it becomes easy to set up wind power plants.

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“Rajasthan has come up with a very good policy in 2019, which has a stated objective to promote wind, hybrid and hybrid with storage energy. Captive consumption and third-party sale should be encouraged as it will provide cheap electricity to the industries helping them to become competitive as well as boost the RE sector,” he added.

In the solar segment, Sunil Bansal, General Secretary, Rajasthan Solar Association said the “ solar sector offers tremendous opportunity for domestic manufacturing with varied usage across sectors especially for MSMEs and we should take benefit of this gift of nature to Rajasthan.”

Further adding that the coming decade gives the opportunity to convert Rajasthan into a manufacturing hub for solar equipment not only for solar energy projects but many other items such as solar lamps, pumps, dryers, etc.

“The Investment Board and One-Stop Shop mechanism of 14 departments would greatly facilitate and boost investors willing to invest in the state”, said Anandi Lal Vaishnav, Additional Commissioner, Bureau of Investment Promotion, GoR. He added that RIPS 2019 has given fairly good benefits to the renewable energy manufacturing sector under the policy and in the customised package also as it is under the thrust sector.