The world's largest
solar plant has been unveiled in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu, India. With a capacity of
648 megawatts, the plant nabs the record from the previous title holder, the
Topaz Solar Farm in California, which is capable of producing 550 megawatts.
The first glimpse of the staggering project reveals that the record-breaking
plant will have 25 lakh solar panels covering an area of 10.36 square
kilometers. The project cost Rs67.9 crore to build and is capable of powering
an equivalent of 1.5 lakh homes. What's even more remarkable is that the entire
project took only 8 months to complete. Each of the panels are cleaned daily by
team of robots that are completely powered by the renewable solar energy the
plant itself generates. With a potentially unlimited supply of renewable energy
- and robots to do its bidding - the plant is almost entirely self-sustaining.
Positioning itself with India's goal of becoming the third
largest solar market globally, the endeavour has reportedly pushed India's
total solar capacity past the 10GW mark, according to Bridge to India, a
consultancy firm that specialises in tracking India'a renewable energy sector.
“India is expected to become the world's third biggest solar
market from next year onwards after China and the US,” said a Bridge to India
spokesperson. “India is expected to add new solar capacity of 5.1GW this year,”
they added.
Even though this is a great achievement, India still has a ways
to go before reaching its vision of producing solar power for 60 million homes
by 2022, and to generate 40 per cent of the country's energy through renewable
sources by 2030.
Source: DNA-1st December-2016
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