Mumbai: The first solar park under the ambitious MukhyaMantri Saur Krishi Vahini Yojana 2.0 (MSKVY 2.0) has started producing day time power for farmers.
Solar energy projects of 9,200 MW are being developed under the MSKVY 2.0.
The objective of this scheme is to solarize 30% of feeders by 2025.
The first solar park of 3 MW capacity was activated in Dhondalgaon village in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar district of Marathwada region.
Nearly 1,753 farmers will get 12 hours of uninterrupted power supply during day time from this project.
The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) is spearheading the project.
The MSKVY 2.0 is being implemented under leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who holds the Energy portfolio.
This scheme to benefit farmers is the largest distributed renewable energy project in the world. Solar power generation at Dhondalgaon is the beginning of various solar projects being developed as per letter of awards given in March this year to develop solar projects of 9200 MW capacity.
“Total capacity will be achieved in stages by December 2025”, said MSEDCL CMD Lokesh Chandra.
The solar energy project which started generation last week is developed on 13-acre public land at Dhondalgaon about 3 Km from the electricity substation of MSEDCL.
The power utility had given a letter of award on 7 March 2024 and power purchase agreement (PPA) was signed on 17 May.
The project was developed and activated within four and a half months of power purchase agreement. It is connected to 33 KV substation of Dhondalgaon and it will be useful to provide day time power supply to 1753 agriculture pumps connected to 5 electric feeders. Farmers in Dhondalgaon, Nalegaon, Amanatpurwadi and Sanjapurwadi will benefit from this project, MSEDCL offices said.
Fadnavis after taking charge of the ministry, had declared ‘Mission 2025’ to solarise at least 30 percent agriculture feeders by December 2025.
After that implementation of MSKVY 2.0 was accelerated.
The state Cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has recently approved expansion of MSKVY 2.0 to increase capacity by 7,000 MW and take it to 16,000 MW so as to provide day time power to 100 percent agriculture pumps.
“In Maharashtra power is supplied in shifts during day and night to agriculture pumps and there is decade old demand to provide only day time power to pumps. MSKVY 2.0 was launched to solve this problem. Under this scheme electricity is generated using solar energy to run agriculture pumps. For this, solar power generation projects are being developed at multiple locations in the state to develop decentralised solar power projects. Apart from solving the problem of farmers getting daytime supply, this project is also useful in reducing the burden of cross subsidy on industry as electricity will be available at cheaper rate,” MSEDCL officials said.