Solar Parks India

Solar parks are a phenomenon unique to India, due to the particular evolution of the industry in India as well its land constrained nature. Solar Parks in the Indian context means a large developed area, where solar developers can build solar projects. This park usually has infrastructure facilities like transmission and distribution, roads, lighting, security etc. The solar park developer also provides value added services such as operations & maintenance, financing, etc to investors and developers.

The first solar park in India was developed by India’s Prime Minister Modi, when he was the leader of the Gujarat state. The Charanka solar park was quite successful and till 2014 Gujarat had installed more than 50% of India’s total capacity, thanks to infrastructure and feed in tariffs. After becoming the leader of India, Modi wanted to replicate the success across India. 2 more solar parks have been developed in Rajasthan and as per India’s 100 GW solar policy, 25 solar parks are to be developed with 500 MW or more of capacity. The federal government has invited state government to allocate land to solar parks. The government will give subsidies for providing transmission infrastructure, as well as money for feasibility studies to be done for these solar parks. The government wants 20 GW of solar capacity to come through solar parks, out of the 60 GW capacity allocated for grid connected solar power plants.

Read more about Solar Parks in India here.

Benefits of Solar Parks

• Shared Development costs
• Addresses land acquisition problem in India which is a major issue
• Distributed operational expenses
• Faster and easier clearances

Problems with Solar Parks

• High charges imposed by solar park developers (e.g Charnaka) defeating its entire purpose
• Transmission facilities being only set up in 2-3 years, till which park cannot be used
• Private players are not interested too much in setting up solar parks, as it locks away capital for a long time
• No clarity on the revenue model for solar park developers

List of Solar Parks

The Government has approved 27 solar parks, having aggregate capacity of 18,418 MW in 21 States/Union Territories till date.

You can look at the current updated list here.