Gujarat is the country’s sixth-most significant state in terms of land and ninth most populous, with over 60 million residents. Gujarat is among India’s most affluent and efficient states and an essential player in India’s energy industry.
It is paving the way for energy from renewable sources (RE), which has constructed the capacity to install nearly 120,000 MW of renewable energy.
Gujarat’s Solar Energy Portfolio
Gujarat is considered to be a semi-arid area which receives a lot of sunshine. The Gujarat government is working to capitalize on the advantages of this geography.
The state of north-western India has a capacity of 7782 million MW. It currently holds the second position on the top 10 list of most solar-powered states of India. And there’s more. Even though it has only 5 percent of the nation’s inhabitants, Gujarat houses approximately two-thirds of India’s solar power home installations.
The booming growth of roof solar panels across Gujarat is traceable to favorable policies introduced by Gujarat’s government. In 2019, the Gujarat government launched the Surya solar subsidy scheme to build 1.6 GW of rooftop solar capacity by the end of March 2022.
While the goal was not achieved between 2019 and 2022, it could still expand its rooftop solar sector to 0.085GW in size to 1.2GW.
Gujarat is also constructing the world’s largest renewable energy park, which has an energy capacity of 3000MW. The park, combining wind and solar energy, will help reduce the emission of 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
Gujarat Solar Policy 2021
In 2021, the Gujarat government announced a new solar policy to encourage solar energy for consumers across every sector. The key highlights of the policy were:
The ceiling on capacity was removed from all kinds of solar power projects.
Consumers could rent their homes or roofs to generate solar power to an outside developer.
Net-metering is a service that is available to both residential and MSME customers. In the first five years after the installation the government of Gujarat will purchase excess electricity at a fixed solar price of Rs2.25/unit. After that it will be 70% of the current tariff that was uncovered and agreed to with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL) by way of the process of competitive bidding.