JOIN USTo give a fillip to the state's clean energy drive, the Karnataka government is planning to come out with a policy document on renewable energy (RE) shortly.
“The government of Karnataka is working on a renewable energy policy, which will be released soon, as alternate sources of power need to be harnessed to meet the growing needs,” the managing director of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) Pankajkumar Pandey said on Thursday.
He was speaking at a confererence on “Securing energy future through clean technologies” organised by trade body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Karnataka.
He said that the challenge for public utilities is to provide power to remote areas of the state and the best bet is implementation of solar projects, which is on high priority for the government.
The mismatch between demand for energy and supply in Karnataka is projected to continue till 2018, with the deficit estimated at 16 per cent by FY2017 and taper down to 10 per cent by FY2018, according to a report authored by consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released at the event.
The report quoted statistics from the Centre for the Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) that had prepared a roadmap on behalf of Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission, to say that the installed capacity (for energy) is expected to reach 18,632 MW by 2017. The current installed capacity is about 13,818 MW, the PwC report said.
The share of renewable energy in the overall installed capacity mix is about 25.8 per cent in Karnataka, which stands fourth in RE capacity at 3,570 MW, trailing behind Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat.