New Delhi: Nextracker on Wednesday announced the signing of a master supply agreement (MSA) with Amara Raja Power Systems Limited to deliver its award-winning solar trackers for NTPC Limited's Nokh Solar Project – soon to be one of India's largest solar parks. Amara Raja is executing this 306-megawatt peak (MWp) project, as a ground-mounted utility-scale power plant spread over 1,850 hectares (approximately the equivalent of 3,500 contiguous football fields) in the state of Rajasthan.
The announcement follows the upward trend for the deployment of solar trackers combined with bifacial module technology in India due to falling module prices and increased tracker design efficiencies. Nextracker's optimised bifacial tracker design has been proven to increase energy yield as validated by third-party test laboratories in this seminal bifacial and solar tracker white paper.
"In line with the government's vision to bring more renewables into the energy mix, we are delighted to collaborate with Nextracker, the global leader in solar tracker technology, on the landmark Nokh solar project," stated Dwarakanadha Reddy, Business Head Projects Division, Amara Raja Power Systems. "We are proud to offer this advanced technology to NTPC, and Nextracker is the right local partner to help us achieve lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE) over the lifetime of the plant due to its bifacial optimized design."
"We are grateful for this opportunity to partner with Amara Raja and India's largest power public sector utility, NTPC Limited," said Dan Shugar, Nextracker founder and CEO. With a gigawatt of our high performing solar tracker systems operating on 24 projects across India and close to 200 local staff to support design and engineering, local content and manufacturing, sales and aftermarket services, Nextracker is committed to delivering high performing systems to our customers and supporting India's goal to ensure that 50 per cent of the country's energy requirement comes from renewable resources."
NTPC has increased its renewable energy investments in recent years and aims to achieve over 60 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2032 accounting for 50 percent of its overall generation capacity. With the first shipments to arrive in Q1 of 2023, the project is expected to be operational by October 2023. Rajasthan has the highest installed renewable energy capacity (19.5 GW) among Indian states, having recently achieved its 14 GW target for 2022 in December 2021.
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