Adani bags world's largest green power purchase agreement

Adani Group's efforts to become the world's largest renewable energy company reached another milestone as it signed the world's largest single power purchase agreement (PPA) for a green energy project with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), to supply 4,667 MW of green power.

Sources say Adani's PPA with SECI overtakes oil major Total's deal in September 2020, when it acquired 3.3-gigawatt solar projects in Spain and signed a corporate power purchase agreement for 3 GW of its Spanish solar portfolio. Other major single largest PPAs were Google's 1.6 GW deal for 18 projects last year and an offshore wind company's 920 MW-deal with Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC. A few months ago, India's ReNew Power had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with SECI for 400 MW of round-the-clock (RTC) electricity supply to New Delhi Municipal Council and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. ReNew Power has a portfolio of 4.2 GW of commissioned and committed utility-scale solar projects across India and is building a 10 GW portfolio.

Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL) had bagged a manufacturing-linked solar tender of 8,000 MW from SECI, the public sector company mandated to promote solar energy in the country, in June 2020, which was the largest ever single tender for a solar project in the world. Azure Power was also awarded 4000 MW, besides mandating Adani and Azure to make 2 MW and 1 MW of solar equipment as part of the tender. So far, AGEL has signed PPAs with SECI for a total generation capacity of close to 6000 MW of the 8,000 MW awarded in 2020. AGEL expects to close the balance 2000 MW PPA in the next two to three months, said a press release.

AGEL currently has 4,763 MW of operational solar and 647 MW of wind capacity. It has 10,080 MW of solar, 2,054 MW of wind and 2,740 MW of hybrid power under construction. Mercom Capital, an US-based think tank, recently ranked Adani Group as the top-ranking global solar power generation asset owner with 20.3 GW capacity across operational, under-construction, awarded and acquired assets.

A month ago SECI had signed possibly the largest green power PPA with the distribution utitlies in Andhra Pradesh, for nearly 7 GW. Sources say SECI was planning to give power from the 12 gigawatts it tendered to Adani Green Energy and Azure Power. The power has to be supplied in tranches for two years from September 2024. A month ago Azure had signed a PPA with SECI for supply of 600 MW under its 4 GW manufacturing linked projects, which will supply power for 25 years at a fixed tariff of Rs 2.54 per kWh.

“This is yet another step in our journey to enable India's dual objective to accelerate India’s renewable energy footprint as well as promote domestic manufacturing under the Atmanirbhar Bharat programme. Following the proceedings at COP 26. This agreement keeps us well on track to our commitment to become the world’s largest renewables player by 2030," said Gautam Adani, Chairman of the Adani Group.