First Solar commissions 130 MW of solar power plants in AP, Telangana

First Solar Power India, the local subsidiary of the Nasdaq-listed First Solar, announced the commercial operation of 80 MW and 50 MW solar power plants in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Wednesday.

The projects are part of the 260 MW project portfolio owned by First Solar in India.

Sujoy Ghosh, First Solar’s Country head for India notified that after achieving a milestone of 1GW in solar photovoltaic capacity footprint in India, First Solar Power is delighted to add 130 MW of utility scale solar power to the grid, growing their portfolio of operational solar assets to a cumulative capacity of 150 MW.

Electricity generated by the two projects will be purchased by the Southern Power Distribution Company of Andhra Pradesh and the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company under 25-year power purchase agreements.These projects will help these to states to achieve the ambitious renewable energy goal.

Favourable factors 

The following factors make Andhra Pradesh an ideal location for setting up Solar Power Plants:

• Availability of about 300 sunny days in a year with solar insolation of more than 5 kWh/m²/day.
• Amongst the best performing power distributing companies in India (APEPDCL and APSPDCL).
• An efficient and strong evacuation infrastructure that can facilitate distributed generation.

The policy aims to promote widespread usage of solar power and to meet the following objectives.

Andhra Pradesh Solar Power Policy

Andhra In order to promote Solar Power Projects, the Government of Andhra Pradesh have issued orders formulating Andhra Pradesh Solar Power Policy with the following objectives:

• To target a minimum total solar power capacity addition of 5,000 MW in the next five years in the State with a view to meet the growing demand for power in an environmentally sustainable manner.
• To develop solar park(s) with the necessary utility infrastructure facilities to encourage developers to set up solar power projects in the State.
• To promote distributed generation that can help in avoiding upstream network cost and contribute towards loss reduction.
• To deploy solar powered agricultural pump sets and meet power requirements of farmers during day time.
• To promote local manufacturing facilities which will Generate employment in the State.

By Baishakhi Dutta