Global solar company SunEdison has announced plans to develop five gigawatts of renewable energy in India by 2020 and build a $4-billion, 7.5-gigawatt-per-year solar manufacturing facility, the country’s largest, in a joint venture with Indian power company Adani Enterprises.
“This facility will create ultra-low-cost solar panels that will enable us to produce electricity so cost effectively it can compete head to head, unsubsidized and without incentives, with fossil fuels,” said SunEdison President and CEO Ahmad Chatila.
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The new renewable energy capacity will be installed in the southern state of Karnataka. The manufacturing plant will create 4,500 direct and 15,000 indirect jobs in the northern state of Gujarat, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi previously served as Chief Minister.
As PM, “Modi has turned his eye to the country’s overall solar industry, saying that he wants foreign companies to lead investment of over $100 billion to help push India’s solar energy capacity to 100 gigawatts, some 33 times what it is now,” by 2022, Phillips writes. “SunEdison and other major international solar firms are being drawn in by Modi’s enthusiasm and the country’s overall potential.”
