The Indian state of Odisha has announced an ambitious plan to set up a 1000MW solar park. The park will be built through public-private partnership and is already approved by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
The solar power park would be built in clusters for which 5,000 acres of land would be required. The land identification process is currently in progress. The overall investment for developing this park would be approximately Rs 6,500 crores (USD 1.1 billion).
Around 20% of the power generated from the park would be bought by the state government. The producers would be given permission to sell the remaining power to entities outside Odisha at market prices after securing the first right of refusal from the state government.
Under the public partnership model, Green Energy Development Corporation of Odisha Ltd (GEDCOL), a 100 per cent subsidiary of Odisha Hydro Power Corporation would be the nodal agency for implementation of the solar park. GEDCOL would partner with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for development of this park.
Odisha’s solar policy is currently in the final planning stages. As stated in the Odisha’s draft solar policy, GEDCOL will develop the solar parks where it will be responsible for infrastructural facilities like approach roads, boundary wall, water, auxiliary power, and power evacuation facility, whereas in case of private partnership model, a private entity would be responsible for development of solar parks.
This solar park in Odisha is in line with the central government’s plan of establishing 25 solar parks all over the country.
Recently Odisha has become the first Indian state to have a 100% solar powered village. The solar project was installed at Baripartha village with the support of Nalco, ECCO Electronics and Jakson Solar. Under the project, all 61 households of the village would possess two solar home lighting systems with the facility to charge mobile phones and other devices.
