US-headquartered solar power major, SunEdison, on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Rajasthan in which the company has said it would put up 5,000 MW of solar power plants in the state.

This comes at a time when the Rajasthan government is coming up with a new solar policy that would enable the state to facilitate creation of 25,000 MW of capacity in five years.  The main elements of the proposed policy is allowing land owners to lease their land to solar developers for up to 30 years, extendable by 10 more years, reduction in net worth requirements of the solar company and in the security deposit.

SunEdison, the largest foreign investor in the Indian solar space, has half of the 100 MW of solar plants it owns in India, in Rajasthan. In a press release, the company said today that it intends to put up “multiple solar mega power projects”, each of 500 MW. The company will sell its power to entities “inside and outside” Rajasthan, including to government-owned companies such as the Solar Energy Corporation of India, NTPC Vidyut Vyaparan Nigam and Power Trading Corporation (tariffs have not been disclosed.)

SunEdison, which also produces polysilicon, used for making solar cells, recently announced a breakthrough in the technology for the manufacturing of the key raw material - a process that shaves energy consumption in the manufacture by 90 per cent. Consequently, this gives SunEdison an ability to make cells cheap and be profitable at lower tariffs.

The US company has just begun production of polysilicon using the ‘high pressure fluidized bed reactor’ technology in a plant that it is putting up in Korea jointly with Samsung Fine Chemicals. SunEdison’s Asia-Pacific Head, Pashupathy Gopalan, said recently that the company would look at investing in polysilicon manufacture in India if the policy support was right.

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