Shared Infrastructure for Solar Parks Project

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The development objective of the Shared Infrastructure for Solar Parks Project for India is to increase solar generation capacity through the establishment of large-scale solar parks in the country. The project has two components. First component, shared infrastructure for solar parks will cover financing for shared infrastructure, such as, access roads, water supply anddrainage, telecommunications, pooling station inside the solar parks and transmission lines connecting these internal pooling stations to the external substation that may or may not be at the periphery of the park, feeding into the national or state grid. The scope of investments covered will depend on the modality and approach adopted by the respective selected state for developing the solar parks. While some states intend to provide a full range of infrastructure services to the selected private-sector developers, others intend to provide only pooling stations to facilitate internal evacuation. In most solar parks, project developers or generators will be responsible for the interconnection of each plot in the solar park with pooling stations, using suitable voltage for underground or overhead cable. Second component, technical assistance will provide capacity -building support to Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA), the SNAs in the states where selected solar parks are located, and the selected state PIAs, which will include the State Nodal Agency (SNA) and/or Joint Venture (JV) companies or state agencies across the participating states. Specifically for the state PIAs, although their role and mandate is growing rapidly to meet the Government of India’s ambitious renewable-energy targets, they have limited capacity and experience to deliver on these mandates.