Indian business conglomerate Adani Group has commissioned a 648 MW solar power plant in Tamil Nadu state of India. The company set up the country's largest PV system through its subsidiary Adani Green Energy (Tamil Nadu) Ltd, part of Adani Green Energy.
Set up in the Kamuthi region of Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu, the plant is one of the largest solar power plants in the world set up at a single location. It is connected to the Kamuthi 400 KV substation of Tantransco.
The world's largest single location PV power plant is in China, a 1,000 MW plant in Yanchi region of China. Another Chinese plant, Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, has 850 MW, which was completed in two phases. It is followed by a 579 MW capacity Solar Star park (I and II) in the US.
With this power plant, Adani Green Energy has taken its total operational solar power capacity to 688 MW, which inculdes a 40 MW plant in Bitta region of Gujarat. The company is aiming to have 10,000 MW of solar power capacity by 2022. Adani has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government of Rajasthan to set up a 10,000 MW solar power park. This park will be open to other companies to set up their own solar plants. A similar project is a 13,000 MW solar power park planned in Gujarat.
The Adani Group wants to venture into manufacturing for solar PV as well. It is setting up a manufacturing facility in Gujarat in three phases. The first 1,000 MW phase of this facility is set to come online by the end of this year.
The Tamil Nadu 648 MW project was built with 2.5 million solar modules, 576 inverters, 154 transformers and 6,000 km of cables, all supported by 230,000 foundations and 27,000 tonnes of structure. The PV equipment used was sourced from all around the world. Installation of about 11 MW was done a day to set up the plant in eight months' time, according to the company.
The group with revenues of $10 billion spent 45.5 billion INR ($678.9 million) on the entire project, local media reported.
The plant will help Tamil Nadu in meeting its renewable purchase obligation (RPO)
of 2.5% in 2016-17 (see Tamil Nadu To Procure More PV). At the end of June, Tamil Nadu had already become the No. 1 solar state in India, with a total capacity of 1.37 GW (see South Leads in India PV Capacity)