Renewable energy specialist Adani Green Energy has been chosen to build 8GW of solar farms in India over the next five years. The tender is worth $6bn, making it the largest ever awarded.
The company, part of India’s Adani Group conglomerate, is to complete 2GW of solar projects a year between 2022 and 2025. Adani Solar, its sister company, is to manufacture 2GW of solar units.
Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani (Adani)
The work was awarded by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a government agency set up to deliver India’s plan to install 100GW of solar energy by 2022.
Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, said in a press statement: "In today’s world, climate adaptation cannot be considered independent of economic development priorities, and both job creation and decarbonization must be simultaneous objectives. The fact that renewable power will transition into becoming the world’s cleanest and most economical fuel is a foregone conclusion and the Adani Group intends to play a leading role in this journey."
The plants making up the 8GW will be sited in many locations, but at least one will be a 2GW array on a single site, which would be the world’s largest solar farm. Factories to carry out the solar cell and module manufacturing will be established by 2022 and along with Adani’s existing 1.3 GW of capacity will "further consolidate the group’s position as India’s largest solar manufacturing facility", according to the statement.
According to research published last year by Wood Mackenzie, the cost of solar electricity in India is the lowest in the Asia-Pacific region. India’s levelised cost of photovoltaic energy is $38 per megawatt hour, or 14% cheaper than energy generated from coal.
An Adani Green spokesperson told Greentech Media that the developer would finance each 2GW chunk itself. The company would then look to refinance once the plants were operational. Some of the projects have already undergone two to three years of development work.
Top image: Adani’s solar manufacturing plant (Adani)
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