Central Government has revised the National Solar Mission target

Central Government has revised the National Solar Mission target of Grid Connected Solar Power projects from 20,000 MW by 2022 to1,00,000 MW by 2022.
Centre has envisaged to achieve the 1,00,000 MW target by setting up Distributed Rooftop Solar Projects and Medium & Large Scale Solar Projects.
The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has further set two categories under which the target will be achieved.
Under category-I: the Ministry has targeted to harvest 40,000 MW solar energy by setting Rooftop Solar panels.
Under category-II: the Ministry has targeted to harvest further 60,000 MW energy through the collective efforts like – Scheme for Decentralized Generation of Solar Energy Projects by Unemployed Youths & Farmers, through PSUs, Large Large Private Sector/IPPs, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), Under State Policies and Ongoing programmes incl. past achievements.

National Solar Mission:

Also known as Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission was approved by Government of India on 11 January 2010.
The Solar Mission was initiated with an aim to achieve long term Energy and Ecology security which was planned to implement in three stages to install the capacity of 20,000 MW by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan in 2022. The three stages are as follows

• Stage-I 2010-2013 target 1,000-2,000 MW.
• Stage-II 2013-2017 target 4,000-10,000 MW.
• Stage-III 2017-2022 target 20,000 MW.

Note: Custom and excise duty for several input raw materials for manufacturing of solar power devices is exempted by the government to reduce the cost of solar power.

Month: Current Affairs - August, 2015