The Thar desert is set to become the hub for solar projects which are expected to generate upto 2,100 gigawatts of solar power. Already 35,000-km land has been set aside for both PV and thermal solar farms which are being set up by small firms with plant sizes of as little as five MW.
In a bid to facilitate this effort, the ministry of environment and forests has exempted solar farms from having to seek environment clearance. Environmental clearances can take from between two months to a year, and given the acute power crisis looming in the country, this is expected to provide a major boost to the industry.
The ministry of new and environmental energy and the large number of private players who have moved into this field, do not want to get bogged down with issues of land acquisition which they believe has already delayed several power and other industrial projects, and had therefore sought a clarification on this issue from the ministry of environment and forests.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has issued such a clarification, helping to assist this massive program to increase grid-connected solar power generation capacity from 20 million watts at the end of the 2010 to 20,000 million watts by 2020.
This is likely to help keep the solar mission on schedule with power generation being generated by March 2013.