New Delhi, Aug 7 (KNN)  The government has taken several measures to spread awareness about the use of renewable energy such as solar energy and wind power by publishing various articles and booklets and also by offering incentives to those who install such systems.

This was stated by Minister of state for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal in the Lok Sabha today.

“These include publication of booklets on solar energy and wind energy, articles in magazines on renewable energy including special issues on solar energy and wind energy, organization of awareness and capacity building programmes through state nodal agencies, regional rural banks and manufacturers/suppliers of solar systems etc,” said an official release quoting the minister.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is also providing financial and fiscal incentives for the installation of off-grid and grid connected solar power plants. These include preferential tariffs/generation based incentives, accelerated depreciation, concessional/nil excise and customs duties etc.

“Under the Off-grid and Decentralized Solar Applications Scheme of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, the Ministry provides capital subsidy of 30 per cent of project cost in the general category states and 90 per cent of the project cost in special category states to the central and state government ministries and their organizations for installation of off-grid SPV power projects having module capacity up to 500 kWp limited to certain benchmark costs of the project,” Goyal said.

He said that the Government is promoting wind power projects through private sector investment by providing fiscal and promotional incentives such as concessional import duty on certain components of wind electric generators, excise duty exemption to manufacturers.

In addition, 10 years tax holiday on income generated from wind power projects is also available and loans for installing windmills are available from Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and other financial institutions.  The Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) in Chennai provides technical support including wind resource assessment.

This apart, preferential tariff is being provided in potential states. The Ministry has announced a Generation Based Incentive (GBI) under which Rs 0.50/unit generated from wind power projects is provided to the projects with a ceiling of Rs 1.00 crore per MW.  (KNN/ES)