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Utility-scale PV power plants account for the largest share of India’s solar energy segment. Azure Power and Adani Group, two major solar project developers, have respectively commissioned megawatts of large-scale PV projects recently.
Azure Power announced on June 13 that it has commissioned a 100MW solar power plant in Andhra Pradesh. The project was auctioned by NTPC and was set up as part of the 1,000MW Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park.
Azure Power will supply power to NTPC for 25 years at a tariff of INR 5.12 (approximately US$7.9 cents) per kWh.
“We are delighted to make a contribution towards realization of our Hon’ble Prime Minister’s commitment towards clean and green energy, through solar power generation,” commented Inderpreet Wadhwa, Founder and CEO of Azure Power.
Adani Group announced commission of a 50MW PV power plant in Uttar Pradesh also in mid-June. Adani invested INR 3.15 billion (approximately US$48.9 million) in construction of the project and selected string inverter technology for it.
Adani won this project under the National Solar Mission programme in January 2016, and the winning bid was INR 4.78 (approximately US$0.07) per kWh. Electricity generated from this plant will be transmitted through a 132kV line that connects to the UPTCL Mahiba substation under an agreement signed with India’s largest utility NTPC, reported PV Tech.
Currently, Adani operates 838MW of solar capacity across India. The company expects to expand its capacity to 2GW by the end of 2017.
12.5GW of solar from 57.472GW RE resource
India’s renewable energy installation capacity has reached 57.572GW by April, 2017, according to Mercom Capital Group and India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). Solar capacity reached 12.5GW by April 2017, representing 21.8% of the total renewable energy resource.
Bridge to India expects that India may add at least 8GW of solar capacity this year, while EnergyTrend forecasts also 8GW.
China’s Trina Solar is the largest PV module supplier to the Indian solar market with a market share of 25.7%, followed by Hanwha Q CELLS’s 10%. Currently, India’s domestic PV utilization rate is less than 20%, according to EnergyTrend’s observation. National PV auction requires only around 10% domestic products.
Some Indian PV companies have applied for setting anti-dumping tariffs against PV products imported from China, Taiwan and Malaysian to avoid higher and higher penetration rates of low-cost imports.
(Photo: hiroo yamagata via Flickr shared by CC 2.0)