The race for green energy is on. India, driven by soaring electricity demand and a push to reduce reliance on China, is rapidly producing solar panels, fuelling a booming yet uncertain market reported CNA.
At the Adani Group’s factory in Mundra, in India’s western state of Gujarat, assembly lines churn out photovoltaic panels around the clock.
Up to 10,000 a day come off the line, with most sent straight to Khavda, further north, where the Indian conglomerate is finishing what will be the world’s largest solar park.
But Adani Solar’s CEO, Muralee Krishnan, says operations are “actually lagging”.
“Our capacity needs to be fully used – we should work 48 hours a day.”
The intensity is matched by other major producers in the world’s most populous nation.
At the Tata conglomerate factory in Tirunelveli, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, 4,000 mostly women employees also work non-stop shifts.
“They operate 24/7, so you get better yield, better efficiency, better productivity,” said Praveer Sinha, CEO of Tata Power.
“You cannot stop the production line … there is a rush to produce to maximise the output.”
With the twin imperatives of development and lower carbon emissions, India has set itself ambitious renewable energy targets.
Last year, it said half its electricity-generation capacity was now “green”, five years ahead of the timeline set in the Paris Agreement on lowering emissions.
But 75 percent of electricity is still generated by coal-fired power plants, with inflexible operations and long-term coal power purchase agreements hampering renewable uptake.
