TOKYO --
General Electric Co. is investing $24 million in India’s largest
solar-power plant, drawn by what it called the technology’s “incredible
potential” in the nation.
The investment by GE’s financial services unit in
Welspun Energy Ltd.’s 151-megawatt photovoltaic plant is the U.S.
company’s first in the local solar industry.
GE said this week that it plans to invest more than $1 billion a year
globally in renewable projects that promise “very significant returns.”
“India has gained incredible potential for the development of solar power,”
Raghuveer Kurada, business leader for India and South East Asia at GE
Energy Financial Services, said in a statement. “Our investment in
Welspun Renewables’ solar project helps to realize that potential.”
India, which had virtually no solar power three
years ago, plans to draw $11.7 billion of investment by 2017 to expand
capacity sixfold as plunging panel prices make generation less costly.
In contrast, fuel-supply bottlenecks are driving up the cost of power
produced from coal and natural gas.
GE has already invested $10 billion in mostly wind and solar plants. Its entry into India’s solar industry
“boosts the credibility of the whole sector” and demonstrates that
local projects are now big enough and developers established enough to
attract international interest, Welspun Energy Managing Director Vineet
Mittal said in a phone interview from Mumbai.
Total Cost
Welspun built the plant at a total cost of 11.8
billion rupees ($194 million), Mittal said. GE’s investment will free up
cash for Welspun to build new projects as it seeks to double capacity
to 600 megawatts by the end of this year. The plant in Neemuch in central Madhya Pradesh state
operates at a capacity utilization factor of 26 percent, the companies
said today in the joint statement. The figure is a measure of how
efficiently a plant produces energy, compared with its maximum capacity.
In comparison, the average capacity utilization factor of plants in Gujarat state, home to the mostsolar-power capacity in India, was 18.7 percent in their first year of operation, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in an October report.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/04/ge-invests-24-million-in-indias-biggest-solar-power-plant
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