Indian Developer Secures World's Largest Solar Order

While the concept of gigawatt-scale solar projects seemed surprisingly huge only a few years ago, it seems to have become more common in recent times. The latest evidence of this is the 8GW solar capacity awarded to Adani Green, part of which will be a 2GW single solar plant, the new largest solar plant among all the solar sites in the world.

The novel ‘Manufacturing-linked solar tender’ was launched by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). The 8GW solar arrays will be spread throughout India. Adani will also set up the manufacturing of 2GW of solar cells and modules, as per the tender. With 6 billion dollars and 400,000 jobs directly or indirectly created; this is world’s largest solar bid.

A Big Stride Forward

Last year in November 2019, SECI put forward the manufacturing-linked solar tender, where a cell-module manufacturing facility along with a power generation plant was obliged to follow.

Although the tender initially garnered some criticism owing to its ambitious numbers, it did find bidders after a couple of revisions. Another highly interested bidder is Azure Solar, a Delhi-based company who has been awarded 4GW plant + 1GW manufacturing.

Adani had initially submitted their interest for 4GW plant and 1GW manufacturing but ended up doubling those numbers and is receiving what now has become the world’s largest single order. This doubling was done under the ‘green shoe’ option provided by the tender.

An Unmissable Impact

As Adani Green sets the stages of the solar plants and manufacturing unit, it will not only bring employment to 400,000 people, but also offset 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.

As recent as 2012, with just a gigawatt of total capacity, India was not seen in the solar race. However, in the following years India accelerated its solar energy portfolio to become one of the key contributors to global solar capacity.

Today, the total installed capacity in India is slowly inching close to 40GW, which is a respectable number. Adani’s winning of SECI’s solar award is an important milestone in the nation’s solar timeline. This not only makes the commodity trading conglomerate one of the largest solar companies in the world, but also the one with the nation’s largest solar capacity.

With recent developments, the company is poised to achieve its ‘25GW by 2025’ goal.

Timeline

According to the company, the first 2GW of solar generation capacity will come online by 2022. The 2GW manufacturing facilities will also be set up by 2022, and the next chunks of power plants will come up incrementally by 2025.