India announces draft strategy for phase II of JN-NSM

INDIA: The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India, has announced the draft strategy for phase II of the Jawaharlal Nehru-National Solar Mission (JN-NSM).

Thrust areas for JN-NSM phase II include: targets for phase II of JN-NSM, include scaling up of grid connected projects, rooftop PV program, off-grid schemes such as:
-- Energy access
-- Off grid lighting systems
-- Solar cities
-- Solar water pumping
-- Telecom towers
-- Solar water heating systems
-- Solar cookers and steam generating systems
-- Industrial process heat applications
-- Air conditioning / refrigeration.

Hybrid system: One of the thrust area of phase-II is to bring development in hybrid technology, for this ministry shall be promoting systems based on hybrid technology with solar as one of the main or secondary source of energy. Focus shall be on promoting new systems based on hybrid technology with solar energy contributing at-least 40 percent of source of generation. Ministry shall also promote existing projects running in different source of generation to adopt solar hybrid technology even if contribution from solar energy is around 5-10 percent.

Manufacturing: A domestic solar manufacturing base to provide solar components is an important part of India’s aspirations to become a major global solar player. The mission aims to establish country as a solar manufacturing hub, to feed both a growing domestic industry as well as global markets. The solar mission, while leveraging other government policies, looks to provide favorable regulatory and policy conditions to develop domestic manufacturing of low-cost solar technologies, with the support of significant capital investment and technical innovation.