The east Indian state of Bihar seems ready to participate in the country’s renewable energy race with a new policy in the making.
According to media reports, the government of Bihar is planning to launch a comprehensive renewable energy policy that will result in 3.5 GW of capacity operational in the state by April 2022.
The Bihar Renewable Energy Development Agency (BREDA) is currently conducting meetings with stakeholders to iron out the details of the policy which is expected to be finalised by this month’s end.
Officials at BREDA have not given any initial estimate of technology-wise distribution of the planned installed capacity. However, the overall target is more than the target by central government’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
MNRE has distributed technology-wise cumulative targets for various states. For Bihar, the solar power installed capacity target by April 2022 is 2,493 MW while for small hydro and biomass-based power projects the capacity is 25 MW and 244 MW, respectively.
It would be safe to assume that the planned renewable energy capacity would have provisions for implementation of solar power capacity. Bihar is only a handful of states of land and solar radiation resource not to have auctioned solar power projects till now.
Neighbouring Jharkhand had allocated 1.2 GW of solar power capacity in one of the largest-ever solar power auctions in the country earlier this year.
