The success of India’s foray in building the world’s largest renewable energy park is a template oil-rich Nigeria can adapt to as the largest African economy turns to renewable energy to tackle climate change.
India has shown a twin incentive for ramping up its own installed renewable energy capacity, based in energy security as much as the need for cleaner air and atmosphere, and it’s working to produce a massive 30 gigawatts of electricity.
Unlike Africa’s most populous country who needs more than 10 times its current electricity output to generate supply for its 200 million people, nearly half of whom have no access at all, India has set the foundation for the world’s largest renewable energy park, set to produce a massive 30 gigawatts of electricity for its population of over one billion people with huge energy needs.
The massive 30 gigawatts (GW) wind and the solar project will spread over 72,600 hectares (180,000 acres) in the western state’s Kutch region. That’s an area the size of Singapore. It will cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50 million tons annually.
The park will be made up of all the good stuff like solar panels, solar energy storage units, and windmills. The hybrid renewable energy park is part of a bigger project, which includes a desalination plant, and a fully automated milk processing and packing plant.
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To put into perspective just how much 30 GW is: Across the entire United States, there is 49.45 GW of solar power capacity installed from utility-scale solar power plants (excluding rooftop solar); and only five countries have over 30 GW of solar power capacity installed.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said “the hybrid renewable energy park will be the largest in the world and generate 30,000 gigawatts of power,” as reported by AFP.
“Energy security and water security are vital in the 21st century,” he continued. “The two major projects of the renewable energy park and the desalination plant inaugurated today in Kutch are steps towards achieving the two.”
India plans on generating 175 GW in renewable energy by 2022, and 450 GW by 2030. On top of this, the world’s second-most populous country also aims to bring down its carbon dioxide emissions by 50 million tons every year pointing to other countries like Nigeria ways to achieve cleaner energy.
Nigeria is endowed with huge energy resources, yet it perennially suffers energy poverty. Also, the reliance on fossil fuel to meet Nigeria’s energy needs has been attended with many problems such as physical deterioration of energy transmission and distribution facilities, inadequate metering system, inadequate generation capacity, deforestation, desertification, erosion and a host of other environmental problems.
