Mega solar park starts without fanfare

Amaravati: The world’s largest ultra-mega solar park in the state started production without any formal inauguration, thanks to conflict between TDP and BJP. The state government wanted the Kurnool ultra-mega solar park to be inaugurated by Prime Minister and senNarendra Modi t requests to the Prime Minister Office in December 2017.

The state government wanted to organise the inauguration of the solar park on a grand note by inviting Prime Minister. But with the change in the political scenario in the state, the state government has been maintaining silence over the inauguration and gave green signal to concern authorities to start power production.

According to sources, after making requests to the Prime Minister Office, the matter had been continuously pursued at high level (in Chief Minister Office-CMO) for confirmation of schedule of Prime Minister visit to Andhra Pradesh. But the Prime Minister office did not send any communication until March.

Meanwhile, the TDP came out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s coalition government in March and the state government stopped pursuing the matter. The Prime Minister Office sent queries to the CMO in March asking to confirm the dates for Prime Minister’s tour to Andhra Pradesh for inauguration of Solar Park.

State government officials just formally replied stating that it (confirmation of schedule of Prime Minister’s visit) was PMO’s responsibility. As the government was not interested in the Prime Minister’s visit to AP, in the backdrop of strained relations between state and Central government, officials were directed to put the matter in abeyance,” a senior official said.

As the construction of ultra-mega solar park had been completed in January, trial run was conducted in the same month. “After we were given directions, we started production from the solar park. The state government is of the view that it may lead to controversy if Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu inaugurates the solar park as the government had already made request to Prime Minister Office,” a senior officer of Energy department told The Hans India who did not want to be quoted.

The 1,000 MW (1 GW) world’s largest single location solar park in Kurnool was successfully set up AP Solar Power Corporation Ltd through a joint venture special purpose vehicle in which Solar Energy Corporation has 50% stake, AP Genco has 41 % and New and Renewable Energy Corporation (NREC) has 9%.

As the solar park became a centre of attraction for global renewal energy companies, several global environmental advocacy groups and representatives of energy companies from abroad, including USA visited the ultra-mega solar park to study it.

Multinational Companies namely M/s SunEdison, USA and M/s Soft Bank Energy, Japan won the bids for 850 MW at a rate of Rs 4.63 per kwh in international competitive bidding and established 500 MW and 350 MW respectively. The remaining 150 MW was implemented by Azure Power (100 MW) and Prayatna Developers (50 MW).

Total land of 5683.22 acres was acquired in a record period of nine months and nearly Rs 7,000 crore of investment was made for setting up this
solar park and around 2,100 MU of solar power is generated every year.