A wind, solar and battery storage plant is being planned for the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which has faced power woes in recent months due to grid failure.
The renewable energy facility will consist of 120 megawatts of solar, 40 megawatts of wind, 20-40 megawatt-hours of battery backup and will be spread over 1,000 acres in the district of Anantapur.
According to CleanTechnica, such an installation will be the world’s largest once commissioned.
The estimated $155 million project was jointly developed by Solar Energy Corporation of India, the renewable energy agency of Andhra Pradesh, NREDCAP and Andhra Pradesh Transco.
Significantly, the plant will receive funding through a loan from the World Bank, which announced this week that it would stop financing oil and gas projects to help the global shift to cleaner energy sources.
As CleanTechnica noted, the bank’s support is good news for the project:
“The fact that the World Bank has agreed to fund the project means that the tariffs would likely be extremely competitive, even with the existing thermal power plants in the country. The World Bank had offered debt funding for a 750 megawatt solar power park in the state of Madhya Pradesh earlier this year. The auction for that solar park broke the record for the lowest solar power tariff in the country at that time.”
The developers are planning to tender the new plant by March next year, PV-Tech reported.
India has seen many ambitious bids from all over the world to build and operate upcoming renewable energy facilities, highlighting the country’s success in expanding its clean power portfolio at a low cost, The Economic Times pointed out.
Power Minister Piyush Goyal, who has set ambitious renewable energy targets, commented that the record low bids signal a “green future” for India.
Source: ecowatch.com
