India building world’s largest solar power plant

Sambhar Salt Lake – NASA

India will build the world’s largest solar plant near Sambhar lake in Rajasthan with a capacity of 4,000Mw.

The plant when put into operation will by itself increase the country’s electricity generated fourfold.

The project is being constructed by a consortium of five state-owned utilities and will supply power at a rate more than 20% below the current tariff.

CleanTechnica reports the project for which construction could start in 2016 has some serious implications for the country’s coal industry:

The capacity of 4,000 MW is very significant in the Indian context. Earlier this year a private utility, Tata Power, commissioned the first coal-fired Ultra Mega Power Plant UMPP of installed capacity 4,000 MW. Another three such projects of capacity 3,960 MW each are at various stages of construction.

Interestingly, all these projects are facing critical problems of fuel availability and, as a result, financial viability. These four UMPPs have been awarded to two companies – Tata Power and Reliance Power. These companies have filed petitions with the concerned authorities to allow them to increase the tariff of the electricity sold as they are struggling to access low-cost coal.

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