First Solar made a Green Energy Commitment to develop 5GW of capacity by 2019 at the RE-INVEST meet, joining India’s vision to ramp up solar energy capacity in the total energy mix to 10 percent to meet the country’s increasing demand for sustainable renewable energy.
Total global installed PV Solar capacity has jumped from 3.7GW in 2004 to 135GW at the end of 2013. And, India’s plan to install 100 GW capacity of solar-generated electricity by 2022 is following that lead, with R&D bringing about more efficiencies to support an even larger growth.
“India remains one of our most important global markets. Given its economic growth and the need for energy security and energy access, solar presents a very compelling opportunity to the government and the industry today, to demonstrate how it enables a sustainable and affordable energy solution for the 1.2Bn people of this country. First Solar is excited about the vision that the new Indian government has for solar energy, and as a global market leader our commitment demonstrates our intent to work with the government in achieving this goal”, said James Hughes, Chief Executive Officer of First Solar, Inc.
“Today’s announcement is part of a broader commitment that First Solar made last year when it announced plans to build utility scale solar projects in India. We are one of the lowest cost producers of solar energy in India with a development pipeline of over 200MW of projects in AP and Telengana. The overall commitment is of course contingent upon the government providing PPA allocations from utilities by way of enforcing RPO’s as well as the land/evacuation infrastructure under the solar park policy”, said Sujoy Ghosh, Country Head, for First Solar India.