With more than 900 MW of the 1,000 MW already commissioned, and the rest expected to be ready soon, the Kurnool Ultra Solar Park has become the largest single location solar project.

With a capacity of 1,000 MW, it has already outpaced the 648 MW solar park developed by the Adani group in Tamil Nadu and the 550 MW Topaz Solar Park in California.

The project is located about 280 km from Hyderabad and is developed under the Ministry of Renewable Energy’s Solar Parks scheme. The park has been set up by the Andhra Pradesh Solar Power Corporation Limited (APSPCL), a joint venture company where in 50 per cent equity is held by Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), 41 per cent by AP Genco and 9 per cent by Non-conventional Energy Development Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (NREDCAP).

Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary Energy, Andhra Pradesh, told BusinessLine that nearly ₹7,000 crore has been invested on the Kurnool park. Developers such as Greenko (earlier Sun Edison) (500 MW), Softbank Group (350 MW), Azure Power (100 mw) and Adani (50 mw) have together invested around ₹6,000 crore,while around ₹1,000 crore has been put in by the State Government.

The 5,811-acre site has more than 40 lakh panels with a wiring network over 4,000 km long. In comparison, the site is little more than the Hyderabad international airport (5500 acre).

As regarding the price of solar energy, the developers had contracted for supplying at ₹4.63 per unit, and two developers Azure and Adani will be supplying at ₹5.13 per unit.

However, with the project getting bundled with the NTPC thermal project, the overall cost works out to about ₹4 per unit.

According to the experts, the power generated from the solar park is enough to meet about 80 per cent of the total power requirement of Kurnool district.

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