BANGALORE: B. Shivalingaiah, Managing Director, Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd. (KREDL), has appealed to the State Government to convince the State's power regulator not to put a ceiling on the maximum share of renewable energy that could be purchased by the energy supplying companies (ESCOMS) and Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd. (KPTCL).

Delivering the keynote address at an Indo-Canada conference on "Sustainable, non-grid renewable electric power generation for rural electrification", organised by the Shastri Indo-Canada Institute, Canadian International Development Agency and the Central Power Research Institute here on Thursday, Dr. Shivalingaiah said it was possible to increase generation of renewable energy if there was no ceiling.

Ceiling

At present, a ceiling of 10 per cent has been imposed on the quantum of renewable energy that can be purchased by the ESCOMS.

Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) Chairman K.P. Pandey recently took exception to the State Government permitting the purchase of renewable energy in excess of 10 per cent.

Dr. Shivalingaiah said it was wrong to think that renewable energy such as wind power was costlier. Though it would be costly in the initial days, it would become free after seven years when the investment cost would have been recovered.

In this context, the cost of wind energy would become cheaper than thermal projects if the duration of its power purchase agreement was increased from the present 10 years to 20 years, he argued.

He reiterated the need for taking steps to bring about a `brown revolution' through large-scale generation of renewable power from cow-dung and other organic material. It was possible to generate 6 MW of power from methane obtained from Bangalore sewage, he said.

CPRI Director-general A.K. Tripathy said there was a dire need for power generation to grow at the rate of 6 to 7 per cent annually if the country's Gross Domestic Product had to grow at 8 per cent.

Shortage foreseen

He also cautioned that there would be a shortage of energy for the services and transport sectors as energy requirement was likely to increase drastically. To make up for it, the country had to increase its renewable energy share to a minimum of 15 per cent.

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