Clinton Foundation plans 5 solar parks in Gujarat

Clinton Climate Initiative, a programme of US based William J Clinton Foundation, on Monday signed an memorandum of understanding with the Gujarat government for setting up solar parks in Gujarat.

Each park will serve as a concentrated zone of solar development and will include 3,000 plus megawatts of solar generation as well as manufacturing facilities.

Under the MoU signed with CCI, the government would facilitate in identification of land and create required infrastructure for setting up of solar plants in co-ordination with CCI and invite national and international developers to set up these plants on chargeable basis for the infrastructure created. The power produced by these plants shall in turn be purchased by state power utilities.

"Gujarat has been the first state in the country and the fourth in the world to set up a seperate department for climate change. The proposed 3000 Mw solar power project will see an investment of over Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) and create employment opportunity for over 20,000," said Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi during the MoU signing ceremony.

The project will generate over 5200 million units of clean and green energy and will reduce CO2 emission to the extent of 5.2 million tonnes on an annual basis.

"CCI will initially set up parks in two locations and the cost of generation would come down by then. In all they would set up about four to five parks over a period of time. Each of these parks would generate about 700-800 Mw of solar power," said S Jagdeesan, principal secretary, energy and petrochemicals, government of Gujarat.

A solar park can decrease the cost of solar power significantly, due to economies of scale and use of less expensive domestically manufactured components and it can serve as a solar manufacturing and techonology hub.

The state government has come up with a seperate Solar Policy to harness the huge potential of solar energy that the state has and has already allotted a capacity of over 700 Mw to 34 national and international developers.