The buzz doing the rounds is that Tamil Nadu will soon be coming out with a comprehensive solar policy. Numbers such as 3000 MW by 2015 are doing the rounds, but there have been no concrete announcements as yet on solar power plant plans. However, some announcements have been made for solar street lights etc. We provide some updates in this regard.

• Tenders have already been floated by TEDA for 60,000 solar home lighting systems and 20,000 solar street lighting systems in the state. It would also float tenders for construction of 60,000 solar-powered green houses.
• TEDA is also planning to conduct a campaign in around 1,000 colleges in 10 cities to implement roof top solar power generation.
• In December 2011, Mr Sudeep Jain CMD of TEDA announced in a press release that Tamil Nadu will come out with tenders for 50 MW of solar projects shortly. The 50 MW will be split into photovoltaic and solar thermal, probably as 30 MW and 20 MW respectively. He also announced that Tamil Nadu will also announce a ‘solar park in the southern districts’, where developers could put up their projects. The announcement from Natham R. Viswanthan (Electricity Minister of T.N) Power Ministers’ Conference during July 2011 that the state government is proposing to go in for the installation of captive solar power plants for at least 3,000 megawatt, is exciting, but we do not have any information on how this would be implemented.

At EAI, we are looking forward to more official news and updates. We being headquartered in Chennai, it will be wonderful indeed were Tamil Nadu to start going big on solar.