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KHAVDA, India (AP) — Rising from the barren expanse of the wondrous salt desert that separates India from Pakistan is what will likely be the world’s largest renewable energy project when completed in three years.
The allocation of the forces of the sun and wind will be made in such a way that it is visible from space, according to the promoters of the so-called Khavda Renewable Energy Park, which is named after the village closest to the location of the assignment.
At the site, thousands of employees are installing pillars on which solar panels will be mounted. The pillars look like perfectly aligned concrete cacti that stretch as far as the eye can see. Other employees are building the foundations of the massive wind turbines that will be installed; They also ship building materials, build substations, and lay cables miles away.
When completed, the project will be about as large as Singapore, spreading out over 726 square kilometers (280 square miles). The Indian government estimates it will cost at least $2.26 billion.
The shift towards renewable energy is a key factor at the ongoing COP28 climate summit. Some leaders have come out in favor of tripling the world’s renewable energy in any final deal, while restricting the use of coal, oil and natural gas, which release greenhouse gases into the environment.
What makes this heavy industrial activity peculiar is that it’s taking place in the middle of the Rann of Kutch in western India’s Gujarat state. The Rann is an unforgiving salt desert and marshland at least 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) from the nearest human habitation but just a short army truck ride away from one of the world’s most tense international borders separating the two South Asian nations.
TRANSITION TO ZERO-BASED CLEAN ENERGY IN INDIA
When The Associated Press visited the renewable energy park, two days of unusually heavy rains had left the ground muddy and waterlogged, as the outlet for water in this rugged terrain is evaporation. This made it even more difficult for the staff to do their jobs.
Despite the harsh conditions, between 4,000 and 500 engineers have been living in makeshift camps for most of the past year, working hard to get this task off the ground.
Once completed, it will supply 30 gigawatts of renewable energy each year, enough to power about 18 million Indian homes.
With India aiming to install 500 gigawatts of white power by the end of the decade and reach net-zero emissions by 2070, this project will likely contribute especially to the transition of the world’s most populous country to zero-carbon power generation. – Source sources.
As it stands, India is still primarily fueled by fossil fuels, in addition to coal, which generates more than 70% of the country’s electricity. Lately, renewables provide about 10% of India’s electricity needs. Lately, the country is also in third place. – Largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China and the United States.
“There are other people running here from all over India,” said KSRK Verma, Khavda’s allocation manager for Adani Green Energy Limited, the renewable energy arm of the Adani Group, which has been awarded the 20-gigawatt structure of the task by the Indian government. Verma, with more than 35 years of experience building dams on turbulent rivers in South Asia and huge natural gas deposits under the Bay of Bengal, says this is one of the most challenging tasks he has undertaken.
“It’s not easy to paint there, there are no houses, the terrain is swampy, there are a lot of strong winds, rains and it’s an area very prone to earthquakes,” said Vneet Jaain, general manager of Adani Green at its headquarters in the city of Ahmedabad.
Jaain, who has overseen several ambitious projects for the Adani Group, said the first six months were dedicated to building critical infrastructure. “From April this year we began to execute the actual project,” he added.
The Adani Group has been at a fever pitch this year since U. S. short-selling firm Hindenburg Research accused the organization and its leader, Gautam Adani, of “blatant inventory manipulation” and “accounting fraud. “The Adani Group’s allegations are baseless.
Adani Green’s Jaain says the allegations have had little effect on his ongoing projects, including painting at the Khavda Renewable Energy Park.
AN EXAMPLE TO BE FOLLOWED
“Twenty years ago, India was precisely the place where a large swath of the future global array was located,” Ajay Mathur, executive leader of the International Solar Alliance, said of solar production. renewable energy in the country. The alliance has 120 member countries and promotes renewable energy (mainly solar) around the world.
About two hundred kilometers (124 miles) away, in the market town of Mundra, also along the sea coast of the state of Gujarat, the Adani Group manufactures the portions of solar and wind energy needed for the project. It is one of the few places in India where most of the elements of solar energy are manufactured from scratch. Some factories function as laboratories, with protective equipment, masks, and helmets needed to prevent dust debris that can compromise solar cells.
The nearby wind farm aims to produce 300 wind turbines per year, with blades measuring about 79 meters (86 yards) and weighing 22 metric tons (24 tons). Each wind turbine is capable of generating 5. 2 megawatts of blank power. . They will be the largest in India.
As Sun Alliance’s Mathur said, “India has come a long way” and its large-scale renewable energy projects, along with the Khavda park, will be an inspiration to other emerging countries. “This is a country that is precisely where it is today. “and able to make change,” he said.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
While acknowledging the importance of transitioning to renewable energy, environmental experts and social activists say India’s decision to allow blank energy projects without any environmental impact in the assessment is sure to have adverse consequences.
“The salt desert is a unique landscape” that is “rich in flora and fauna,” adding flamingos, desert foxes and migratory bird species that fly from Europe and Africa to winter in the area, according to Abi T Vanak, a conservation scientist at the Ashoka Trust in Bengaluru for ecology and environmental studies. Vanak has overseen several environmental study projects in the Kutch region.
Kutch and other similar regions are classified as “wastelands,” by the Indian government — and Vanak says this is extremely unfortunate. “They are not recognized as valid ecosystems,” he said.
Because renewable energy projects are exempt from environmental impact in assessments, “there is no formula” for determining which areas are most productive for them, according to Sandip Virmani, an environmentalist founded in Kutch.
At a little over 45,000 square kilometers (17,374.5 square miles), the Kutch district is as big as Denmark and is India’s largest district. Given this, Virmani said there is enough land in Kutch for various renewable energy projects. But he fears that dairies and other local businesses in the region might be impacted by large-scale projects. “It has to be in the context of not compromising on another economy,” he said.
In the meantime, longtime citizens are still waiting to see how this massive mission near their village will affect them.
Hirelal Rajde, 75, who has spent most of his life in Khavda, is aware of the coming allocation of power and the growth of tourism in recent years in this otherwise desolate region. “I think these developments are smart and bad,” Rajde said.
“I think overall you’re going to get more advantages than problems,” he said. “I tell everyone who lives here to keep their land, not to sell it. In a few years, I will tell you that you will have so many paintings that you may not be able to rest even at night.
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