India’s state-owned company National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Green Energy Development Corporation of Odisha Ltd (GEDCOL) for the development of at least 1GW of renewable energy across the Odisha state, in India.
The renewable energy projects would either be for ground-mounted solar or floating PV, with the MOU also envisaging setting up at least 2GW of pumped storage projects (PSPs) in the Eastern state.
The state of Odisha is far behind most of the regions in India, with only 534MW of solar capacity commissioned by the end of 2022 and with a registered pipeline of 93MW, far behind neighbouring region Andhra Pradesh, as shown in the treemap below. With this MOU alone the installed capacity would more than double in Odisha.
The state-owned company continues its expansion efforts in the state of Odisha where it has already signed a development agreement with GEDCOL, in 2022, for 500MW of floating solar across different water bodies managed by GEDCOL, after signing an MOU regarding these projects back in July 2020. Last August, NHPC signed another MOU with Indian state-owned company Bharat Electronics to establish a vertically integrated solar manufacturing site in the country.
This is the latest move from a state-owned company in India to further accelerate its solar growth, as the country ended up installing 12.8GW of PV capacity during the 2022 fiscal year and is expected to reach 110GW of domestic module manufacturing capacity by 2026.
