Jakson Green signs 400MW PPA with Indian company NHCP

The project, located in Rajasthan state, increases independent power producer (IPP) Jakson Green’s project portfolio in India to 1 GW, the company said. It aims to have 7.5 GW of renewable energy assets by 2027 and 18 GW by 2030.

NHPC is one of the country’s largest power utilities. In June 2023, it announced plans to develop 1 GW of ground-mounted or floating solar projects in the Indian state of Odisha with Green Energy Development Corporation of Odisha Ltd (GEDCOL). Odisha has one of the lowest solar power generation capacities in India, with just 534 MW of commissioned capacity and 93 MW of pipeline since last summer. That’s compared to states like Rajasthan and Gujarat, which had a combined capacity of more than 20 GW last year.

In December 2023, the utility also sold a 300MW solar project to Singaporean energy company Sembcorp.

The year 2024 has so far been a revival for the Indian solar sector after a weak performance in 2022 and 2023. Data from Indian research firm Mercom Capital showed that the sector saw a 400% increase in deployments in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. More than 10 GW of new solar capacity came online between January and the end of March, with more than 9.7 GW of that being large-scale projects.

Not surprisingly, Rajasthan was the dominant state in terms of new capacity, accounting for 38% of all installations. More significantly, this growth was largely due to the government’s decision to suspend the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) program in March 2023, which limited the manufacturers and solar modules that were allowed to access the Indian market. The introduction of ALMM, coupled with the government’s restrictive import tariffs, led to a supply shortage in India in 2022-23.