With Haryana facing a major power shortage and no immediate relief in sight, the Hooda government has started looking for alternative plans to deal with the growing demand. These include promoting sources of alternative power—biomass, solar power, hydro power, wind power, even power from the poultry waste—and endorsing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs).

Haryana has an existing installed capacity of about 4,600 MW, of which around 2,000 MW is generated by the state’s own power plants in Faridabad, Yamunanagar and Panipat. But that’s still not enough to meet the state’s demand of over 5,000 MW. Recently, two units of 300 MW each have been set up at Yamuna Nagar. The state government is building other major power plants at Jhajjar and Hisar but they will take about three years to be ready and the state government has started looking for alternatives.

At least 20 biomass-based power projects that will generate 183 MW are coming up at Sirsa, Panipat, Karnal, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bhiwani and Jagadhari, according to the Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA). Sources in HAREDA say the state government has set a target of at least 500 MW for these biomass projects.

Solar energy is another source the state is hoping to exploit. With the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) fixing a tariff of Rs 15.96 per unit for power through solar energy, the state government is confident of attracting top corporate houses to set up solar power plants in Haryana.

Being the fourth state after Rajasthan, Punjab and West Bengal to announce tariffs for power generation through solar energy, Haryana is hopeful of leading the race with maximum tariffs. Reliance Industries Ltd., Albina Power, ACME Telepower, Epuron Renewable Energy Power, Emco, RS India Wind Energy and Admire Energy Solutions (Moser Baer Company) etc. have already evinced interest in producing power from solar energy in Haryana, says Sumita Misra, Director of HAREDA.

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