RattanIndia Apna Solar, a venture of Indiabulls-co-founder Rajiv Rattan, has won a contract to place solar panels on 75 public buildings in cities of Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh as part of the Madhya Pradesh government’s efforts to increase renewable power generation.
The contract was awarded by Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitran after competitive bidding.
The total capacity of the panels will be 5 megawatt and this will be connected to the public grid.
“This is one of the first rooftop solar projects tendered in the country and more such projects are likely to come up very soon,” said RattanIndia Apna Solar.
India has a target of having 100 GW of generating capacity from solar by the year 2020.
Of course, 100 GW of solar power capacity is not equivalent to 100 GW of coal power capacity. While coal plants can run at 90% of their capacity on average, solar panels run at only around 20-25% of their capacity as sunlight is not available throughout the 24 hours in a day.
By 2022, India would have conventional power capacity of around 250-300 GW, and solar would add another (effective capacity of) 20-25 GW.
RattanIndia Group is promoted by Rajiv Rattan who cofounded Indiabulls Group in 1999, with interests in financial services, real estate, power generation. In July 2014, the power and infrastructure businesses were split from Indiabulls and rebranded as RattanIndia under the chairmanship of Rajiv Rattan. The Group has installed capacity of 1600 MW which will be ramping up to 2800 MW by end of current financial year.
“Such initiatives would go a long way to augment the government’s target of installing 100 GW of solar power capacity by 2020. Our Company is fully geared up to contribute to the fast growing solar power sector in the country.” said Rajiv Rattan, Chairman, RattanIndia Group on the signing of the agreement.