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December 17, 2012The concept of solar parks was started in India by the Gujarat government where land, infrastructure and electricity transmission is established in one place making it easy for solar developers to set up megawatt scale solar energy plants. This has been copied by Rajasthan and now by Tamil Nadu as well. The 6% SPO for industrial customers in power deficient TN is driving huge investor interest in solar energy in the state. Some big investments in solar farms have already been announced and more such solar parks are being planned.
Read more about TN Solar Energy Policy.
Industrial Customers band together for meeting the Solar Energy requirements
To reduce their cost of ownership and meet the government requirements, industries in the state are banding together to start special purpose vehicles (SPV) which will establish solar parks in 60-120 MW range. This will be started in most of the industrial clusters where the nearby industries will take a stake. This will not only allow the equity investors to meet their own SPO but also allow them to sell the surplus to others. This has the potential of turning a costly expense into a revenue stream for the industries. The benefit of the SPV concept is that it will:
a) Ease Financing as banks in India are more comfortable lending to large farms than individual rooftop solar panel systems
b) Reduce Costs as larger solar panel farms have lower costs than smaller distributed rooftop systems.
The project is targeted for completion in 12 months. Raasi Green Earth will initially set up a 10 MW solar farm and has tied up with investors for the balance 90 MW, according to official sources. This project in the Public-Private Partnership mode will provide adequate infrastructure facilities including water, power evacuation facilities and developed space for solar power projects. The objective is to facilitate investments in solar power generation, the release said. A 500-acre solar farm, an infrastructure facility to support 100 MW of solar photovoltaic power generation capacity is to come up in Ramanathapuram District, South Tamil Nadu. According to an official press release, Raasi Green Earth Energy Pvt Ltd will set the Rs 920-crore project in Paramakudi. An agreement was signed between the company and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation in the presence of the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa