Welspun Energy has held a ceremony commencing construction of a 50 MW solar PV plant in the state of Maharashtra. The ceremony was attended by several members of India's parliament, and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Shri Ajit Pawarji laid the foundation stone for the Baramati Solar Project.
The project in the Pune district which will be built under a public-private partnership with state utility Mahagenco, which will be contribute a portion of the finance for the Baramati project. Welspun will cover 60% of project costs and receive 62% of the revenue generated.
Welspun plans to build the Baramati Solar plant in two phases, with the first 36 MW to be installed on 75 hectares of government land, and the remaining 14 MW to be built after the acquisition of another 30 hectares.
The plant will add significantly to Maharashtra's installed solar capacity. According to the nation's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) 2/3 of India's installed PV capacity at the beginning of 2014 was in the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Maharashtra came in a distant third, with only 237 MW installed.
The project is being supported under Maharashtra's state solar policy.
The timing is also notable, as it follows the recommendation by India's Department of Commerce in May 2014 to impose anti-dumping duties on imported PV. Since the anti-dumping news came out, India's PV market is pretty much standing still, notes Mercom Capital CEO Raj Prabhu.
India's Ministry of Finance is expected to make a final decision on the anti-dumping duties in August 2014, and Prabhu notes that solar PV projects that are waiting on imported components are frozen until then.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.