The tea industry of Assam is amidst plans to set up solar projects in available tea plantation areas and barren lands.

Recently, an innovative meet titled ‘Opportunities for solar power plants in tea estates & tea factories’ was set up at the Tea Auction Centre premises of Guwahati. Some solar companies like Tata Power, Roofsol, KSL, AVCO and Firstgreen, and financial institutions PNB and SIDBI made their presentations at the meet.

Rakesh Kumar, Managing Director, Assam Power Distribution Company, commended the tea industry representatives at the meet for giving suggestions on the Draft Assam Renewable Energy Policy 2022.

The NRE (New and Renewable Energy) unit of the APDCL explained numerous modes of execution regarding the solar projects in the tea industry - setting up of solar power plant by letting out uncultured barren tea land, rooftop solar power plant, captive solar power plant & setting up solar parks by mode of renting out land to APDCL.

According to Northern Eastern Tea Association (NETA), APDCL has already allotted vendor process registration to approximately 15 tea estates for installing rooftop solar power plants.

Solar projects in the tea industry can be a game-changer. The barren uncultivated land can be used for solar power projects, offering revenue to tea companies. NETA also have a factory roof for solar panels installations.

The tea industry is seasonal, so power consumption is not the same throughout the year, which implies that it could be sold to other units.

Bidyananda Barkakoty, Adviser at NETA, quoted that there are some more issues and therefore guidance from the government will be required to see how to tackle them so that it is a win-win situation for the tea industry and the state.

Source Credit - https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/assam-tea-industry-eyes-solar-power-projects-to-augment-revenue/89882463