New Delhi, June 17 (KNN) The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on Wednesday gave its approval for stepping up of India’s solar power capacity target under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) by five times, reaching 1,00,000 MW by 2022. The target will principally comprise of 40 GW rooftop and 60 GW through large and medium scale grid connected solar power projects.

The total investment in setting up 100 GW will be around Rs 6,00,000 crore. In the first phase, the government will provide Rs 15,050 crore as capital subsidy to promote solar capacity addition in the country.

This capital subsidy will be provided for Rooftop Solar projects in various cities and towns, for Viability Gap Funding (VGF) based projects to be developed through the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and for decentralized generation through small solar projects.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) intends to achieve the target of 1,00,000 MW with targets under the three schemes of 19,200 MW.

Solar power projects with investment of about Rs. 90,000 crore will also be developed using bundling mechanism with thermal power. Further investment will come from large public sector undertakings and independent power producers (IPPs).

State governments have also come out with state specific solar policies to promote solar capacity addition.

The Centre is likely to approach bilateral and international donors as also the Green Climate Fund for achieving this target.

The new solar target of 100 GW is expected to abate over 170 million tonnes of CO2 over its life cycle. This solar scale-up plan has a target of 40 GW through decentralized solar power generation in the form of grid connected rooftop projects. While decentralized generation will stabilise the grid, it will minimise investment on power evacuation. (KNN/ST)