Tata Power has won the rights to develop five solar projects with a combined capacity of 250MW at the Rs148bn ($2.2bn) Pavagada Solar Park in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Image: Tata Power to develop a further 250MW capacity at the Pavagada Solar Park. Photo: courtesy of khunaspix/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
In this regard, the company’s subsidiary Tata Power Renewable Energy (TPREL) was issued a Letter of Award from Karnataka Renewable Energy Development (KREDL) for developing the five solar projects, each of 50MW capacity.
The power generated from the Tata Power solar projects at the Pavagada Solar Park in Tumkur district will be supplied to the State Discoms under 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
Tata Power won the projects in April 2018 after successfully bidding a tariff of Rs2.85 ($0.041) per kWH.
The company said that the solar power projects will be placed into service within 12 months from the date of signing of the PPA.
Tata Power renewable president Ashish Khanna said: “Pavagada Solar Park has provided us a unique opportunity to enhance our generation capacities in the same location and post development we will have the optimisation advantage of operating more than 400 MW AC power from Pavagada.
“Establishment of solar project in this area will improve the revenue to the Govt. and enables Pavagada to be one of the pioneers in Solar park in the entire Country.”
With the addition of the 250MW solar projects, TPREL will have an overall operational capacity of 400MW in Pavagada Solar Park. Out of this, 150MW capacity has already been operational since the financial year 2018.
Earlier this month, Finnish energy company Fortum had bagged rights to build a 250MW solar project at the Pavagada Solar Park by bidding a fixed tariff of Rs2.85 ($0.041)/kWh.
In March 2018, the first phase of the Indian solar park – comprising 600MW capacity was inaugurated by the Karnataka government. Officially known as Shakti Sthala, the Pavagada Solar Park is expected to become the largest solar parks in the world when it achieves its full capacity of 2,000MW by December 2018.