Reliance , Adani & The Race To Turn Kutch Into A Green Energy Powerhouse

In the past year,  plans announced for Khavda have turned into reality, as multiple renewable project commissionings have been announced for the region. These announcements will come even more frequently for the next two years, as Adani Green in particular builds on the headstart it has in the region.  A 30 GW plus plan for Khavda makes it the largest such solar park in the world, but the interesting question is how long it will hold the crown, as Reliance's plans for 550,000 acres of land in the same Kutch region could potentially overtake Khavda in due course. Of Adani plans for 30 GW, 7.5 GW worth projects are already up and running. 

Why Khavda Was Chosen

Khavda, in Gujarat's Kutch district, is not an obvious place to build anything. It sits a bare kilometer from India's international border with Pakistan, in the fringes of the Great Rann — a vast salt flat that is seasonally flooded, bone-dry at other times, and largely uninhabitable. The soil is saline. The groundwater is brackish and lies 700 meters underground. Till some time back, there were no supply chains, no grid connections, and until recently, not even a PIN code (370510). The closest air traffic control is at Bhuj, 160 kilometers away. 

The site selection was driven by a convergence of resource quality and land availability that is rare anywhere in the world. The region witnesses around 2,060 kWh per square meter of annual solar irradiation annually— making it one of the best solar resources in India after Ladakh — and wind speeds of around 8 meters per second, which is among the strongest in the country. The combination of both resources in one location is what makes the hybrid park concept viable here: solar and wind complement each other across the day and the seasons, smoothing out output in a way neither can achieve alone. To that add cost effective BESS now, and the possibilities have become even brighter for the planned additions here.

Then there is the land. The park is being built on 72,600 hectares of wasteland. Unlike most large energy projects in India, which frequently run into land acquisition disputes and competing land use claims, Khavda's land was largely uncontested. In April 2020, the Defence Ministry cleared the project for 72,600 hectares, despite its sensitivity given proximity to the international border, a pivotal moment for the project. 

The Scale At Khavda- Adani Plans

With Khavda, India's record for large solar parks officially leapt another level. 

At about 538 square kilometres,  the comparison of being roughly five times the size of Paris  has been shared widely. Or the other most demonstrative indicator of size today, being visible from space. When fully complete, it is expected to generate well over 80 billion units of electricity annually. With over 100,000 jobs promised at full capacity. The planned installed capacity is 30 GW of hybrid solar and wind power, with the solar component accounting for 26 GW and wind for 4 GW. There are also plans for a 14 GWh grid-scale battery storage system at the site to help firm up that output. Before that, Adani Green Energy is already setting up what will easily be India's largest BESS project, part of which will become operational this year.  With a commitment to build a minimum 5 GW every year across India including Khavda, Khavda's 30 GW target seems a possibility before or by 2030 with the multiple developers focused on the region. 

Reliance on the other hand, has announced ambitious plans to generate green energy at over 550000 acres of land it has in the same Kutch region, closer to it's Jamnagar Gigahub for green manufacturing.  

The Reliance Plan

For Reliance, the scale is an altogether different level, and unique in how it is almost co-located with its vast upcoming green energy manufacturing hub at Jamnagar.  While the 140 GW generation capacity figure circulating in some reports appears to be an extrapolated projection based on Reliance's stated goals rather than a formally announced target from the company itself, Reliance has officially committed to a net-zero carbon status by 2035. This will come with a 100 GW-capable renewable energy park in Kutch, and a manufacturing ecosystem designed to produce 20 GW of solar modules per year out of Jamnagar, besides cells, BESS , electrolysers and more in stages covering the complete ecosystem for solar and BESS. Production  of modules has already started. At the 2025 AGM, Anant Ambani described a 550,000-acre (2225 square kilometres)  renewable energy hub in Kutch where the company plans to install 55 MW of solar modules and 150 MWh of batteries daily — enough to potentially supply 10 percent of India's electricity demand within the next decade.  

The Difference Between Reliance and Adani's Khavda  Plans

In terms of eventual generating capacity targets, if Reliance achieves anything close to the 100 GW figure for the Kutch park, it would exceed Khavda's 30 GW. In terms of land footprint  it obviously has considerably more land. The economic footprint when manufacturing, storage, and green fuels are included will also be much higher.

But Khavda has a decisive advantage in one crucial dimension: it is real and operational today, with gigawatts already commissioned and a functioning multi-developer consortium delivering power to the grid. While a little slow in starting up, Khavda today is already past the 7 GW mark in total additions. The first 1 GW was commissioned in March 2024, and the first 250 MW of wind power came online in July 2024. As of 2025 end, AGEL alone had commissioned almost 6 GW at the park, and by August 2025, NTPC Green Energy had commissioned 212.5 MW of its 1.25 GW Khavda-I initiative, while GIPCL crossed the 50% mark of its planned 600 MW project by October 2025. Multiple other developers are also pitching projects there.  Designed at the outset to be a national-scale generator feeding the interstate transmission system,  the Ministry of Power has committed ₹18,598 crore to build infrastructure to evacuate 7 GW from the park with Power Grid Corporation managing a 765 kV ultra-high voltage transmission corridor.

Reliance's ambitions, for all their scale and engineering credibility, remain largely in the construction and ramp-up phase for now. Thus, even when it does ramp up significantly, in terms of actual output, it might be only 2032 or around that Reliance actually overtakes Khavda in terms of total generation. And If Khavda ends up crossing 35 GW as many hope it will, then even later.