Patna, Aug. 5: The Bihar government will set up solar power plants in Kajra and Pirpainti, the chief minister decided today at a review meeting of the energy department.
Earlier, the government had planned to set up thermal power plants at Kajra (Lakhisarai district) and Pirpainti (Bhagalpur district), and the memorandum of understanding was signed in 2014 with NTPC and NHPC, respectively. However, the MoUs' terms expired in February last year and sources in the energy department said the decision to set up solar plants was taken up keeping in mind the current and future trends of the energy sector.
"Around five acres of land is required to produce 1MW of solar energy, and as we have 1,000 acres available at each of the project site, we would be able to produce at least 200MW power from each plant," chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh said after the meeting.
"India has become an energy-surplus country and it is really tough to find customers for power to be generated from new thermal power plants," a senior official in the Bihar State Power Holding Company told The Telegraph. "As the Centre is laying emphasis on consumption of clean energy and also incentivise such steps, it is a wise decision to opt for solar power plants."
Another senior official in the power company, who is closely associated with the power generation matters, said one had to keep the power rate in mind as well while planning power generation units. "Going by the market trend, one unit of power costs around Rs 4 to 6 in thermal power plants whereas with the available technology in the solar power field, one unit of power can be generated at a price as low as Rs 2.4. It is always wise to go for an option which is not only environment friendly but will also provide cheap power," said the official.
Energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said an expert committee would be drafted to work out the details of the proposal for the solar power plants. Necessary permissions would have to be taken from the Centre for moving ahead with setting up the solar power plants as decided in principle by the state government.
In today's review meeting it was also decided to complete rural electrification by December this year. At present, 38,596 out of 39,073 revenue villages in the state have been electrified. One revenue village has several habitations ( tolas), so the government has decided to provide electricity to every habitation (1,06,218) "Electrification work in the tolas too has to be completed by the end of December," chief secretary Singh said.
The government will also replace conductors (wires) extensively to ensure quality power supply and check incidents of electrocution when power distribution wires snap suddenly and people come in contact with live wires.
"A loan of Rs 700 crore will be taken from Nabard for the conductor-replacement work and the government will also use its own resources," Singh said.
