US-based solar energy company SunEdison announced a tie up with India's Omnigrid Micropower Company (OMC) for setting up 250 MW of solar power generation capacity through 5,000 rural projects in India.

The projects will come up over the next three to five years at an estimated cost of Rs 5,000 crore.

OMC has already put in place 36 kW micropower plants across India and with the partnership of SunEdison, the two companies aim to quickly provide electricity to 10 million people.

"Solar electricity costs have come down dramatically and continue to come down, thus making it a better choice than conventional fossil sources.We don’t have to make a false choice between cost and clean power any more. While a 1 gigawatt (GW) coal power plant can take 3 to 4 years to be developed and constructed, and a nuclear power plant of similar capacity can take 5 to 10 years, a solar photovoltaic power plant can be developed and built in less than a year and can compete on costs," Ahmad Chatila, President and Chief Executive Officer of SunEdison said in a statement on Saturday announcing the partnership.

Pasupathy Gopalan, President of SunEdison's Asia Pacific Operations added that the company is already building 60 mini grids across the country and partnership with OMC will provide a further boost to the Indian business of the company.

"Our Renewable Energy Services Company model is a proven and commercially viable approach. Our agreement with SunEdison is a huge step forward both for our company and for the people of rural India," said the co-founders of OMC Power, Anil Raj and Rohit Chandra.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW