India's Solar Industry Soars as the World's Largest Solar Park opens

On Thursday the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, announced via Twitter that the world’s largest photovoltaic solar park, a $2.3 billion project revealed just 14 months earlier, has been completed.

“Gujarat dedicates 600 MW of solar power to the nation today. We are celebrating the launch of Agni V & dedication of 600 MW solar power park in Gujarat.”

“This achievement is not merely a step in the direction of power conservation, but it provides the world with a vision of how the power needs of future generations can be solved in an environment-friendly manner.”

The plant was developed as part of a collaborative effort between 21 different companies, and will help India to achieve their renewable energy targets of producing 15% of the nation’s total energy needs from renewable sources by 2020; renewable sources currently only account for 6%.

Another $400 million is to be invested in order to encourage the development of domestic solar panels, for the region’s communities.

The Gujarat solar park has tripled India’s solar capacity and is three times larger than the previous largest solar park in the world; China’s Golmud Solar Park which was built last year with a capacity of 200MW. However both these projects pale in comparison to the TuNur concentrated solar power plant which will be operating in Tunisia by 2016 and provide a capacity of 2,000MW.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com