Tata Power embraces Solar but stays away from National Solar Mission ^
As reported by Business Green, Tata has stepped up its push into the country's fast-expanding solar energy market, inking a power purchase agreement (PPA) with state-run power distributor Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigram (GUVNL) for the construction of a 25MW solar PV plant in the Gujarat region.
This will result in the construction of a photovoltaic solar farm featuring over 100 crystalline silicon solar modules, to be completed by December 2011. This project is likely to be the first in a wave of solar farms across the region.
The Gujarati government has recently decided to allocate an additional 565MW capacity to various solar power project developers in order to encourage them to take up solar power projects in the state. GUVNL has so far signed PPAs with 26 solar power companies covering 365MW of power, and the development of these projects is expected to attract investment of $1.3bn in the state. The project further underlines Tata Power's interest in the solar market after the company began operating a 1MW plant outside Delhi this week in a joint venture with BP Solar. The firm will also soon begin construction on a 3MW, grid-connected solar plant at Mulshi in Maharashtra.

However, none of these projects is part of the Indian government's high profile $19bn National Solar Mission, which Tata has purposefully avoided owing to strict deadlines and what it regards as overly centralised control of development. The mission aims to generate 20GW from solar power by 2022, equivalent to 12 per cent of the nation's current generation capacity.The government has sought to encourage developers to the first round of projects by offering preferential tariffs, loans and a designated buyer of their power.

But Tata and other developers, including Azure, have shunned the mission, saying that the terms of the loans and tariffs are not favourable enough and rather llok for better terms elsewhere.