AP makes rapid strides: 1 GW ultra mega solar park nearing completion in Kurnool

The world’s largest single-location solar park of 1,000 megawatts (1 gigawatt) is nearing completion in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

With 900 MW of the 1,000 MW already commissioned at the Kurnool Ultra Solar Park, and the remaining to be fully operational next month, it has already become the largest such park outpacing 648 MWsolar park developed by Adani in Tamil Nadu and Topaz Solar Park of 550 MW in California.

‘Major achievement’ Taking through the project site located about 280 km from Hyderabad, Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary (Energy), said this is a major achievement. The park has been developed under the solar parks scheme of MNRE and set up by Andhra Pradesh Solar Power Corporation, a joint venture company wherein 50 per cent equity is held by SECI, 41 per cent by AP Genco and 9 per cent by Nredcap.

About ₹7,000 crore has been invested in the park by developers and the government.

Collective effort Of the 1,000 MW, 500 MW has been implemented by Greenko which had acquired the assets of the bankrupt company Sun Edison, 350 MW by Softbank Energy, both at ₹4.63 per kWh, Azure Power 100 MW and Adani 50 MW, the latter two at ₹5.13 per unit with domestic content. The project also get bundled with NTPC thermal project, bringing the tariffs down to ₹4 a unit, G Adiseshu, MD of APSPCL, said.

The solar park is spread over 5,811 acres of land. The plant packs about 40 lakh modules. The Centre has allotted ₹200 crore to the state to develop the park infrastructure.

The state has initiated three other solar parks at Ananthapuram I and II (500 MW each), and Kadapa Ultra Solar Park of 1,000 MW.

With the commissioning of the solar park the installed capacity has gone up to 1,867 MW in AP, making it the state with highest generation capacity outpacing Rajasthan (1,812 MW), Jain said.

The State now has 6,052 MW of installed renewable projects.

With the drastic drop in solar process and big capacity addition, the state plans to expedite solar project implementation and put on hold coal projects.