New renewable energy plant in Goa to meet power needs

The state government has approached the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) to undertake a feasibility study and provide technical assistance to assess potential, availability of technologies and financial viability to set up power generation projects from new and renewable energy sources. 

A senior official said that the study will find out if Goa can generate power from renewable energy source to meet all its power needs. The government has proposed to generate power from renewable sources in the state to the extent possible by assessing the potential to generate power from sources like solar, wind, hydro, biomass, wave and tidal and storage of solar power etc. Goa requires approximately 540MW of power during the day time and 640MW during peak hours from 6pm to 11pm. 

  The official added that the solid waste management facility generates about 0.37MW of power from biogas. The government notified a solar policy with 50  percent subsidy on the benchmark cost. However, till date only about 15MW installations have been completed.

The national institute of wind energy has carried out mapping of potential for generation of power from wind in Goa. The official also pointed out challenges faced by the state to generate power from new and renewable energy sources including, technology and financial viability for storage of the power generated through solar, the technology itself as well as financial liability to generate power from biogas, biomass as well as from small hydro power points at various dams of the water resources department, from windmills and from wave and tidal sources.