Statkraft Commissions 76WM Nellai Solar Project; Its First In India

Norwegian Renewable energy player Statkraft has announced the commissioning of its first solar power project of a large scale in India. It has brought live a 76 megawatt (MW) Nellai solar installation at Ettanakulam in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. Statkraft is already the leading player in renewable energy in Europe and has an ambition to raise its stature as an RE player in India too in hydro, solar and wind segments particularly. The Nellai solar park is a 55 MW (AC) and 76 MW (DC) project located at Ettanakulam village in Manur Taluk in Tirunelveli district in the state of Tamil Nadu in India, set up on around 200 Acres of land.

The Nellai solar project is expected to produce about 120 GWh of green energy every year which can power over 5 lakh households in the country. Statkraft says that the construction site in Tirunelveli was chosen because it receives strong solar irradiance which makes it suitable for solar and also wind power projects.

The construction was done by German Belectric Photovoltaic India Private Limited that will also continue to look after the operations and maintenance services (O&M) for the coming three years of the solar plant’s operations.

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Juren Tzschoppe, Executive Vice President, International Power, Statkraft, said, “Statkraft is currently focusing on the development of greenfield solar projects at utility scale in India. Nellai is the first project in realizing the business objective and supports our strategy to strengthen our industrial presence in the solar segment and grow our customer oriented business.”

The investment model of the solar project by Statkraft is novel in nature as it’s built under the ‘Group Captive Model.’ In this scheme, the customers are owners of at least 26% of the solar plant. They also purchase the electricity under long term power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Rahul Varshney, Country Manager, Statkraft, held, “Nellai will help industries in Tamil Nadu to meet their energy requirements at an affordable price. We aim to become key developers of hydro, wind and solar assets, spreading investments across technologies and business models.”

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Statkraft is a state-owned company based out of Norway and has been doing business in India since 2004. It has a present power generation capacity of 215 MW in India. The Tidong hydropower project in Himachal Pradesh is being constructed by Statkraft and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022. Allain Duhangan and Malana are already operational hydro power projects built by the company.

Globally, Statkraft is on course to develop 9 GW of renewable energy by 2025.