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November 1, 2012Cost concerns: Major bottleneck in the Biomass Power Development
November 2, 2012Solar Energy to Reduce Electricity Subsidy
India’s state of Punjab is looking towards solar and biomass energy to reduce its massive electricity subsidy burden. Punjab is one of India’s top agricultural producing states where farmers are highly pampered by all political parties. Supplying free electricity for powering pumps for drawing water has been a state policy for a long time despite its obvious drawbacks such as wastage and overdrawing of water. However convoluted politics keeps increasing the subsidy burden each year with the current year outgo estimated to be more than a billion dollars.
The country is suffering from a serious power deficit leading to high electricity prices which makes the Treasury lose even more money. The state Government is turning towards solar energy to supply clusters of farm tube wells which will reduce the demand on the power grid. Note Punjab has already attracted the attention of biomass energy developers who are eyeing the state’s large crop residue as fuel for plants.
The Punjab government has decided to explore the possibility of developing solar power clusters to energise agricultural pumps in rural areas, which can help the state to bring down the power subsidy cost, an official said.
Punjab Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday said that “there is a large scope for developing solar power clusters in rural areas to provide power to agricultural pumps directly thereby cutting the subsidy and further investing the saved money to produce clean energy”.