The government of the western state of Gujarat in India has announced the establishment of Asia’s largest solar park that will provide 800 million units of power in two years when commissioned with a power production capacity of 500 MW.
The state-owned Gujarat Power Corporation is developing the solar park, which will cover 2,000 hectares of land, 1,000 hectares of which was government wasteland, in Charanka village near Santalpur in Patan district, northern Gujarat.
The companies like GMR and Lanco, will invest $1.78 billion in the proposed project and already received the allotment letter for the solar power generation under the Gujarat Solar Mission.
In the first phase of the operation, Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation will set up a power pooling station to collect the generated power from 150 solar power production companies that will generate around 176 MW. Out of the total allotted amount of $286 million, an amount of $78 million will be spent for the purchase of land and setting up of the power infrastructure and $139 million towards evacuation facilities. The project when completed will generate around 800 million units of power.
“We would have around 100 MW solar power capacity commissioned by the end of this year, as part of the 500 MW solar park project. Overall, we have allotted 274 MW capacity to companies. Around Rs 15 crore ($3.33 million) would go into setting up every MW of power,” D J Pandian, principal secretary (energy) in the state government said.
GHe proposed project has received one time additional investment worth of 210 crore from the Central Planning Commission and received soft loans worth of $100 million from Asian Development Bank for smart grid infrastructure development.
Gujarat had announced a solar policy in January 2009 with an ambitious target of installing 1000 MW of solar power capacity by the end of 2012 and 3000 MW in the next five years. The state has already signed power purchase agreements of 934 MW.
