As you drive down the winding road, off the Kurnool-Nandyal state highway, a huge patch of blue catches your eye. With each turn, you notice new patches of blue. As you come closer, soon you see a pattern emerge and realise that it is glass all around you—rows of slanted glass panels, eagerly waiting to catch the sun. All the panels are fixed facing south to north at 13 degrees, for optimum capture of the power of the sun.
The Kurnool Ultra-Mega Solar Park, spread over 5,811 acres, is the world's largest solar park. The total park costs one billion US dollars and the Government of India granted Rs 200 crore for the project.
The momentous task of installing 33 lakh solar panels was taken up on November 22, 2016 and was completed on March 30, 2017. It took 6,500 persons per day for months to lay these panels and the work was completed in close to five months.
The solar plant includes projects by Greenko which will produce 500 MW, half of the total capacity, Soft Bank Energy with 350 MW, Azure Power with 100 MW and Prayatna Developers of Adani group with 50 MW. Over a period of time the park will produce 2,600 million units of power per annum.
Prior to the commissioning of the Kurnool Solar Park, the Kamuthi plant in Tamil Nadu had the largest installed solar capacity of 648 MW and Topaz Solar Farm in California 550 MW.
The Greenko project has already started production. Greenko Group was founded by Anil Chalamalasetty and Mahesh Kolli in 2006 in UK. "We were involved in trading Carbon Emission Reductions (CER’s) to help meet the Kyoto Protocol targets of European countries and energy intensive industries out of Stockholm in Sweden from 2003 to 2006. This gave us a strong global perspective of the role renewable energy and clean technologies will play in not just meeting the carbon dioxide reduction objectives, but can also enable developing economies like India to address the fast growing energy needs through low cost and sustainable energy sources like wind, hydro and solar. This will also ensure long term energy security for a high-energy import-driven economy like India," says Mahesh.
"Greenko is now the largest independent renewable energy company in India with close to 3GW of diversified operational portfolio across 12 states in India. The Kurnool Solar project operated by Greenko is largest single location project in the world built in a shortest possible period of just six months and delivering low cost fixed priced energy for 25 years to the nation, on par or cheaper than fossil fuel options like coal or gas," says a proud Mahesh.
While by and large there is no maintenance required for these panels, regular cleaning is necessary for optimum use of sun rays. If there is a strong whirlwind or hailstorm, the panels may be at risk.
"In fact we pray for rain so that the modules get cleaned naturally," says Ch. Srinivasa Rao, project director.
There are close to 3,000 resident engineers on the site who keep a round-the-clock watch over the park. All of them live on-site in containers, made habitable. Though the weather here is quite harsh, there is a lot of camaraderie, says Srinivasa.
"The only major factor we have to keep in mind is to remove any object which will create a shadow on the panels because that will disturb the receiving power," he adds.
Right now, the park is generating 1867.23 MW of solar power, which is the highest in the country. Rajasthan is second with 1812 MW capacity, followed by Telangana (1287 MW) and Gujarat (1250 MW). The target is to produce 10,000 MW of solar power by the year 2022. The park will produce 2,600 million units of power per annum.
