Introduction
On 13 December 2019, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy,
Government of India (MNRE) issued Guidelines for Development of
Decentralised Solar Power Plants (Guidelines). The Guidelines have
been issued to promote production of solar energy near sub-stations
and to ensure availability of affordable and reliable solar power
in the rural areas of the country.
The Guidelines specify that as (Indian) power distribution
companies (DISCOMs) have been incurring higher cost for procuring
power, due to supply of power by such DISCOMs to agricultural loads
(which is done either free or at highly subsidised rates) and the
transmission and distribution loss of the feeder supplying power to
agricultural loads being as high as 30%, the local generation of
electricity will reduce the cost of power procurement for DISCOMs
and will also improve energy efficiency.
