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UP Investors Summit 2018: Renewable energy draws maximum investors
46 MoUs for projects worth Rs 67,000 crore have already been signed for renewable energy, says minister.
Renewable energy sector has attracted the highest amount of potential investment during the investors’ summit with entrepreneurs evincing interest in this relatively new field.
“As many as 46 MoUs for projects worth Rs 67,000 crore have already been signed for renewable energy. The number is likely to go up,” UP minister for renewable energy Brijesh Pathak said while addressing a session on ‘Renewable energy in Uttar Pradesh: The opportunities’ during the UP Investors’ Summit here.
Pathak said he was happy to see the investors’ interest in renewable energy and added that all possible help would be provided to entrepreneurs in setting up plants.
Giving a presentation on UP’s New Solar Policy (2017), principal secretary, energy, Alok Kumar said the state had immense potential of generating solar power with availability of abundant sunlight and land.
He said the policy provided a lot of incentives to entrepreneurs willing to set up solar plants in UP.
Kumar said the demand for renewable energy, which in UP’s context largely meant solar, was bound to increase in future. “Discoms will have to buy at least 42 billion units of power from renewable sources in a year against 3.5 billion units that they purchase today,” he said.
Addressing the gathering, Rajnish Kumar, a senior official of the State Bank of India, suggested that tariff of renewable energy should be rational otherwise it would not work for developers as well as buyers.
Chairman of All-India Power Engineers’ Federation Shailendra Dubey questioned the signing of MoUs for solar power plants. “Setting up of power plants, which obviously includes renewable energy, through MoU route was banned by the UPA government in 2011,” he said, adding the investors should be asked to come through competitive bidding route.
