Bihar, India, Targets 3.5 GW Renewable Energy Capacity By 2022

Originally published on Planetsave.

The east Indian state of Bihar seems ready to participate in the country’s renewable energy race, with a new policy in the making.

According to media reports, the government of Bihar is planning to launch a comprehensive renewable energy policy that will result in 3.5 GW of capacity operational in the state by April 2022.

The Bihar Renewable Energy Development Agency (BREDA) is currently conducting meetings with stakeholders to iron out the details of the policy, which is expected to be finalized by this month’s end.

Officials at BREDA have not given any initial estimate of the distribution, technology-wise, of the planned installed capacity. However, the overall target is more than the target by the central government’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

MNRE has distributed technology-wise cumulative targets for various states. For Bihar, the solar power installed capacity target by April 2022 is 2,493 MW, while for small hydro and biomass-based power projects the capacity is 25 MW and 244 MW, respectively.

It would be safe to assume that the planned renewable energy capacity would have provisions for the implementation of more solar power capacity. Bihar is one of only a handful of states with good land and solar radiation resources not to have auctioned solar projects up to now.

Neighboring Jharkhand allocated 1.2 GW of solar capacity in one of the largest-ever solar power auctions in the country earlier this year.

Reprinted with permission.