Hyderabad: The solar energy industry in Andhra Pradesh will get a major boost, once the government announces its solar policy. According to Chief Minister K Rosaiah, this will complement the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, a dedicated national policy for solar energy that outlines 20 gigawatt (GW) of solar energy generation by 2020.

The state government is also developing a solar farm cluster called Solar City on a 10,000 acre land at Kadiri in Anantapur district. Rosaiah said, Solar City would attract investments worth Rs. 3,000 crore in the first phase. Four firms - Sunborne, Lanco Solar, AES Solar and Titan Energy - have signed a memorandum of understanding with the state to set up units there. These companies will be the anchor units in Solar City and have a combined capacity of 2,000 megawatt. It would take six months for them to start the spadework before beginning their activities.

The Chief Minister said that the state, which has a prominent presence in the solar energy sector with Fab City, a cluster for semiconductor and solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, was emerging as the capital of solar power in India. However, absolute costs of solar energy are high and efforts should be to reduce them apart from increasing the efficiency of PV modules and cells.

The state has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Fraunhofer Institute of Germany, a global research and development institute, to collaborate on new technologies, testing and certification, and training programmes on solar energy, Rosaiah said.