Only houses with a suitable roof and an existing connection to the grid will be eligible for the scheme and consumers will still have to pay for all the net power supplied and consumed via the grid. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget address gave a fillip to several commitments made in the interim Budget in February to incentivise clean energy but stopped short of announcing new schemes.

The Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojna, which aims at providing subsidised rooftop solar installations to one crore households, has been allocated nearly ₹10,000 crore this year. This is more than twice the ₹4,970 crore that was spent, as part of the solar power (grid), last year.

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The scheme offers 300 units of free electricity and, as The Hindu reported, households interested in availing the scheme’s benefits will have to pay a minimum of ₹20,000 depending on the power capacity of the installed system though this could be defrayed by a low-interest, collateral-free loan.

Only houses with a suitable roof and an existing connection to the grid will be eligible for the scheme and consumers will still have to pay for all the net power supplied and consumed via the grid.

Ms. Sitharaman said the scheme has so far generated a “remarkable response” with more than 1.28 crore registrations and 14 lakh applications.

The Minister underlined investment in constructing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a proposal India has been considering for a few years. “Nuclear energy is expected to form a very significant part of the energy mix for Viksit (developed) Bharat. Towards that pursuit, our government will partner with the private sector for setting up Bharat Small Reactors, research and development of Bharat Small Modular Reactor, and research and development of newer technologies for nuclear energy. The R&D funding announced in the interim budget will be made available for this sector,” she said.

SMRs, as the name suggests, are compact versions of nuclear reactors and provide up to 300MW of power. In 2022, Atomic Energy Minister Jitendra Singh had said that these reactors, “less expensive and safer”, would be important to India’s energy security.

The Finance Minister also restated a proposal from 2018 to develop an advanced ultra supercritical (AUSC) thermal power plant via a collaboration involving the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL). However, no specific budgetary allocations were mentioned.

Supercritical plants vapourise water by heating it to a minimum of 300 degrees Celsius and pressurising it to 220 bars. This state, when used to run a turbine for electricity, burns coal more efficiently than in conventional plants. Ultra and advanced supercritical technology is a variation of this and while energy efficient, it requires sustained long-term investment.

In 2018, the government had officially announced that India’s first AUSC-based technology developed by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research and manufactured by the BHEL for NTPC would be set up at the Sipat station in Chhattisgarh.

A policy for promoting pumped storage projects would be brought out for electricity storage and facilitating smooth integration of the growing share of renewable energy, the Ms. Sitharaman said. Pumped storage is a kind of hydroelectric power project in which water is stored at two different elevations, released and pumped back in a coordinated manner to run an electric turbine.

“This year’s budget has a lot in store for the energy sector. It is in line with the interim budget and with major investments in renewable energy will give a shot in the arm to clean energy companies. It underscores a move towards more holistic energy transition pathway, considering energy security, economic growth, employment generation, and environmental sustainability,” said Neshwin Rodrigues, electricity policy analyst, Ember-India, said in a statement. “India now needs to find ways to reduce reliance on thermal power and with battery costs expected to further fall sharply in the coming years, can plan phasing down this reliance,” he said.