Statkraft Commission’s its First Large Utility-Scale Solar Park in India

With an aim to diversify and expand its renewable energy portfolio in the country, International renewable energy developer and generator, Statkraft has successfully commissioned its first large-scale utility solar power project with 55 MWac/76 MWdc capacity in Nellai, India.
 
Sharing about the company’s ambitious plans for India, Jürgen Tzschoppe, EVP International Power, Statkraft, said “Statkraft has an ambition of ramping up as a solar and wind power developer in India and is currently focusing on the development of greenfield solar projects at utility-scale. Nellai is the first project in realising this business objective and supports our strategy to strengthen our industrial presence in the solar segment and grow our customer-oriented business.”
 
The 76 MWp Nellai solar power plant, which is having 1,40,000 solar panels installed and spread across 773,678 m² area of land in Tamil Nadu, will generate approx 124 GWh of renewable energy per year to fulfill the annual power consumption of approximately 5 lakh Indian homes.
 
Moreover, the Norway-headquartered company’s Indian subsidiary has developed the Nellai solar park under the Indian Group Captive model in which its customers own a minimum share of 26 per cent in the plant and bought the electricity produced as per the long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed.
 
“We are very excited to complete our first utility-scale solar park in India and intend to develop more solar projects across the country. Nellai will help industries in the state of Tamil Nadu meet their renewable energy requirements at an affordable price. We aim to become a key developer and operator of hydro, wind and solar assets, spreading our investments across different technologies and business models,” said Rahul Varshney, Country Manager India, Statkraft.
 
However, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for the solar project have been provided by German solar project specialist Belectric through its Indian arm Belectric Photovoltaic India Pvt Ltd. Also, Belectric will provide its operation & maintenance (O&M) services for the first three years of operations of the plant.
 
In April this year, Statkraft signed a collaboration agreement with Aker Horizons, through its portfolio company Aker Clean Hydrogen, to jointly explore opportunities for green hydrogen and ammonia production in India, targeting local steel and fertilizer industries.
 
In this regard, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Rahul Varshney, Country Manager – India, Statkraft in the presence of Indian Power Minister RK Singh and Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt.
 
Meanwhile, Statkraft has been present in India since 2004 and now owned a production capacity of 215 MW with an annual generation of around 1,310 GWh. In addition, the company’s 150 MW Tidong hydropower plant in Himachal Pradesh is under construction and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.