REC is to supply Peak Energy Series panels to a ground-mounted tracker system in Andhra Pradesh, India. The panels will generate around 6.5MWp and all the electricity produced, 12,289kWh per year, will be used to print Eenadu, the largest circulated Telugu newspaper in Andhra Pradesh, owned by the Ramoji Group.
Rapid economic expansion in India in recent years has seen the country suffer an electricity shortage, but high levels of solar irradiation along with high electricity prices paid by industrial customers has made large-scale solar installations an attractive alternative source of energy.
“Solar-generated power for captive consumption not only guards businesses against increasing electricity prices, it also provides good investment opportunity” said Shailendra Mohan Bebortha, Managing Director India, REC. ““We see self-consumption as a key business model for solar in India because it doesn’t depend on incentive schemes, has no restrictions on system sizes, has low level of bureaucracy and makes industrial customers independent from fluctuations in energy prices.”
Mr. G. Rajendra Babu, General Manager of Eenadu, said that his newspaper depends on a stable and reliable electricity grid and that the paper has decided to invest in solar energy in order to become more independent.
“With increasing electricity costs on the one hand and the intermittent energy supply on the other, we can save a lot of money by using the energy produced by the solar installation itself and at the same time fulfill our corporate environmental policy” Mr Babu added.
Andhra Pradesh suffers from the highest power deficit in India, increasing from three percent in 2011 to 16 percent in January 2013 and resulting in the closure of thousands of small and medium enterprises (SME’s). This, alongside the abundant solar irradiation level of more than 1,900 W per m2 and recently announced incentives and policies under the Andhra Pradesh Solar Policy 2012, has made the southern Indian state a promising market for REC in 2014.
The solar plant itself is being built by Photon Energy Systems Ltd, a leading Indian EPC and completion is expected in September 2013.
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