World’s largest solar plant set for India
750-megawatt (MW) solar plant in Madhya Pradesh to be part of the government’s plans to scale up renewable energy capacity
Construction is set to start in India on what will be the world’s largest solar plant, as part of the government’s plans to scale up renewable energy capacity.
The 750-megawatt (MW) solar plant in Madhya Pradesh is due to be inaugurated on August 15, 2016 — India’s Independence Day.
The plant will be larger than the world-leading solar applications in California, including the recently-commissioned Desert Sunlight Solar Farm.
India is aiming to install around 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022 with solar power giant China only planning on beating the target by two years.
More than 300 million Indians do not have access to electricity, and by 2017, it is predicted India will outpace China in economic growth.
A recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India and the capital, New Delhi (pictured), is the most polluted of all.
The new 750MW plant is close to the total amount of solar energy capacity that Australia installed in 2014 and is also 200 megawatts more than the Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in California which is capable of providing power to more than 160,000 Californian homes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “We have always spoken of energy in terms of megawatt. It is the first time we’re talking of gigawatt. We have no option but to make a quantum leap in energy production and connectivity.”
President Obama visited India in January and the two leaders announced that India and the U.S. will work together to fight climate change and “will expand policy dialogues and technical work on clean energy and low greenhouse gas emissions technologies.”
Obama said: “India’s voice is very important on this issue. Perhaps no country could potentially be more affected by the impacts of climate change and no country is going to be more important in moving forward a strong agreement than India.”
India currently has around 33GW of clean energy installed, made up mostly of wind power, with the majority of the country’s overall 250GW capacity coming from coal-fired power plants.
SunEdison and First Solar this week committed to building more than 20,000MW of clean energy capacity in India by 2022.
