Construction Industry News
The blue grids on the ground are endless rows of silicon solar panels. Bhadla is India's largest solar energy park. With 6,000 hectares, it is perhaps second only to the Gulmand solar park in China.
The sun does not only shine on Bhadla. It scorches and withers everything it touches. This place, 220 km from Jodhpur, bakes at 50 degrees Celsius during summers that seem to last forever. Very little grows on the land, just enough to feed some goats and sheep.
About 10 years ago, the Bhadla panchayat was almost off the map. Roads, water and other necessities were far away. The area was of little importance to the local population.
Now Bhadla is where the power of the sun is harnessed to generate 2,245 MW of energy every day.
This solar farm is one of India's new success stories and a decisive step in redirecting 40% of the country's energy consumption to renewable sources. The government of Narendra Modi has set a production target of 500 Gigawatts and without Bhadla that will not be possible.
The first phase - of four - that came about under the UPA government's Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) set a modest target of 70 MW. When the Modi government was elected in 2014, it revised the target for renewable energy generation to 1 lakh MW by 2022.
The center has failed to meet the target, but the total share of solar energy has increased to 55,000 MW of the total power consumption of 3.95 lakh-MW in the country.
Bhadla is hot but also “the hot favorite for solar energy. The park now earns 5 million tons of carbon credits annually,” said Subodh Agarwal, managing director (MD), Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation (RRECL).
Starting here was not easy, as it often is. “The area had no roads, water or electricity. The rugged terrain didn't make it easy either. It was a gradual, resolute approach that led to the opening of the first phase, the smallest of the four phases in the park,” said Agarwal.
When the projects for the first phase were auctioned, the rates they attracted were high at Rs 6.45 per unit, although it had fallen significantly from over Rs 17 when the first projects were installed before JNNSM in 2010.
“The high radiation and highest number of sunny days in Bhadla encouraged energy developers to offer lower rates to buyers (distribution companies or discos). Therefore, it became the first park in the country to allow the lowest rate of Rs 2.44 per unit, which is a new benchmark in the country,” Agarwal said.
The concentration of solar projects has attracted several other companies to set up factories outside the park. A senior official of the RECL said that in addition to the 2,245 MW in the park that has attracted investment of Rs 10,000 crore, projects with an additional capacity of 1,500 MW have emerged outside the park.
The development has created a demand for land, contractors, vendors, material suppliers and several other ecosystem players.
“Bhadla is no longer a village. If you visit the place at night, the lights give you the impression that it is a city without noise and pollution. More than that, the park has changed the face of the area,” said Sunil Bansal, president of the Rajasthan Solar Association.
Demand for land has skyrocketed, causing prices to rise 10 times. The project development and construction has created demand for cement, steel, sand and equipment for many other civil works. Transport, hotel accommodation and other services have also witnessed a spike.
“The sleepy village is now a bustling industrial center. It has created employment for many, some have become contractors, suppliers and project execution partners for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC). Bhadla has created many EPC contractors that are ubiquitous in solar hubs in the country,” Bansal said.
In recent years, robots have been used to clean the panels and no water is needed for this. But the technology is still unsuitable for panels mounted on uneven surfaces, so it is not widely used.
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