BANGALORE: Karnataka state Energy Minister D K Shivakumar on Friday said that the state government might not consider any thermal power projects in the future. The minister said that solar power was the way forward. "The cost of production for solar power generation has dropped from Rs 20 crore per MW a few years ago to Rs 6.5 crore per MW now. We plan to add 1,000 MW of solar power out of which 500 MW has been finalised," he said.

Additionally, the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited is also looking for land from farmers which can be leased in order to produce solar power. "We still need to educate people properly about the economics of rooftop solar. We have initiated steps like deemed conversion and relaxed floor area ratio for solar rooftop generation," he said.

He was speaking at the curtain raiser programme of the upcoming Green Summit organised by the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry and MM Activ.

The Green Summit will be held from April 23 to 25 at Bangalore. There will be a comprehensive research report would be released at the summit, FKCCI stated in a press note.

GREEN Summit (Global Renewable Energy Summit) organized by FKCCI and MM Activ, is an annual Renewable Energy event supported by the Government of Karnataka and envisaged as a platform to showcase the immense business & transformational opportunities in renewable energy, across all segments. The event would deliberate on important issues connected with the sector with leading industry associations partnering with the event.

The Summit brings together leading policy makers, global experts, industry captains, investors and SMEs and other stakeholders and is a unique opportunity to network, meet, learn, build business and chart the future of Renewable Energy in Karnataka and India.