Solar leader Raj banks on costlier coal power, not green energy

Time of India

18-07-2025

Jaipur: Despite being a leader in solar power generation and having the largest capacity of solar plants, the Rajasthan govt has been failing to tap green power for its own use. Renewable energy contributes only about 16% of total power consumption of 3,200 lakh units a day.
While the political leaders laud Rajasthan's achievement in solar, they barely talk of increasing green power consumption in the state, preferring to buy costly coal-based power despite discoms being burdened with a debt of over Rs 1.5 lakh crore. A tender for new coal power plants of 3,200 MW is set to be floated, for which Urja Vikas has sent the final document for the approval of the Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC).
Out of the total 37,000 MW wind and solar power plants in the state, only 11,000 MW are meant for Rajasthan's consumption. Power from the rest of the projects goes to other states. Centre for Energy, Environment & People (CEEP)'s Anshuman Gothwal, said, "Persistent inefficiencies and systemic issues have prevented state power utilities from fully leveraging the state's abundant solar potential. The state's generation utility, RVUNL, lacks a long-term vision for integrating renewable energy and has made little headway on its 2,000 MW solar project.
"
Highlighting the fragmented approach of discoms, Gothwal said shifting between HAM tenders, the Kusum scheme, and other methods without a clear or consistent strategy has resulted in underutilisation of the state's vast solar resources for its own consumption. In fact, RERC made provisions in 2010 that a certain portion of the power consumed in the state has to come from renewable energy. Every year, the targets are set under the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO).
But not even in one year are the targets met. Even though there was a provision for a penalty, it was circumvented.
For example, Rajasthan govt should have had 20% of total power consumption from renewable sources in 2022-23. But the shortfall was over 24%. In the past 13 years since RPO regulations came in, discoms and other obligatory entities of the power sector have missed targets every year. Director at Samta Power, an NGO in the energy sector, DD Agarwal, said, "RERC should not have allowed carry forward the backlog every year.
This is one of the major reasons that the discoms have remained careless about the targets."
Agarwal said Rajasthan's land is used extensively for the generation of solar power, affecting its environment and ecology. "But Rajasthan, which needs solar power the most to fix its unmanageable debt of the discoms, is deprived of the benefits," added Agarwal.
Typically, one mega watt of installed capacity of solar power takes about 4 acres of land. With 37,000 MW of installed capacity, the total area under solar in Rajasthan is around 1.5 lakh acres.