Armed with 648 MW of solar power plants in Tamil Nadu and many upcoming projects in other states, Adani group is all set to replace Tatas as the top solar power generation firm in the country in the next two years.
As per a study done by Mercom Capital Group, 11% of solar power projects (including those in the pipeline) in the country are with Adani. The company has projects in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The group is expected to overtake Tata Power, which, at present, leads in solar power generation installed capacity in the country.
Adani, which has only 5% of the total installed solar power capacity now, is fast heading towards the top slot with a total installed capacity of 2GW. Following Adani is ReNew Power and SunEdison.
The Adani Group entered the solar power sector just over two years ago. The top 20 solar power producers account for almost 80% of projects under development.
Of all the states, Adani is setting up the largest solar power project in Tamil Nadu. The company’s project is coming up at Kamudhi in Ramanathapuram district with a capacity of 648MW.
In a few years’ time, Adani will be the market leader in solar power projects. In Tamil Nadu, they have commissioned 420MW and the rest of the capacity is ready and Adani group is waiting for the evacuation facility to be commissioned.
In Tamil Nadu, only 420 MW capacity will get 7.01 per unit purchase price from Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and the rest will get 5.10 per unit only as the company did not complete the entire project before March 2016 deadline stipulated by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission.
The state-of-the-art solar project in Kamudhi was recently featured in the National Geographic channel. “We hope to achieve a target of 2 GW by 2022 and with the availability of technology, we are hopeful of achieving the target well in time,” said the official.
As on date, the group has 1,568 MW capacity of solar power projects pending in various states.
Meanwhile, with the acquisition of Welspun’s project portfolio, Tata Power currently has the largest solar power installed capacity in India, which is approximately 9%.
Tata Power is followed by ACME with 7% and SunEdison with 5.5% and Adani with 5%. The top 20 firms account for approximately 58% of the 8.1GW installed capacity and over 500 other companies account for the rest.
By Baishakhi Dutta
