The Indian government has set a target to install 175 GW of renewable energy by the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) and 275 GW by FY27
New Delhi: India’s ultra-mega solar parks have attracted foreign capital, top global developers, and provided investors with an opportunity to join a $500-700 billion renewable energy and grid infrastructure investment boom in the coming decade, according to a latest report by IEEFA.
According to the report titled ‘India’s Utility-Scale Solar Parks —A Global Success Story’, India has pioneered the ultra-mega solar park and, in the process, overcame a range of challenging obstacles.
“It is worth looking back over the past four years to see just how far the Indian renewable energy industry has advanced. The Indian utility-scale solar parks have kickstarted India’s energy sector transition amid myriad policy and project execution issues, India’s utility-scale solar park model has firmly stood its ground,” said Kashish Shah, research analyst, IEEFA.
He added that this approach has driven economies of scale and attracted global capital into India’s renewable energy sector over the past five years, with an immediate boon in mid-2017 of halving solar tariffs to a record low of Rs 2.44/kWh at the prevailing exchange rate.
The report added that India now houses multiple ultra-mega solar parks with capacity of more than 1 GW, with two of them being the largest commissioned in the world. The Bhadla solar park in Rajasthan is the world’s largest such installation to date, covering more than 14,000 acres with the total capacity of 2,245 MW.
It added that utility-scale solar parks in India have successfully overcome the three major risks associated with renewable energy development in India, which are project execution risk, off-taker risk, and operation and maintenance risk.
In 2016, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had set a target for 40 industrial solar parks with a combined capacity of 20 GW, and in 2017 doubled this target to 40 GW by 2022.
The ultra-mega power plant scheme involves a state government or local distribution company providing a single central grid connection and acquiring land on which the project can be built, shielding developers from procurement and time-delay risks.
The Indian government has set a target to install 175 GW of renewable energy by the financial year 2021-22 (FY22) and 275 GW by FY27.
Source: energy.economictimes.indiatimes
