While Justin Trudeau approves pipelines in Canada and police forces faces off against anti-pipeline protesters in Standing Rock, North Dakota, India has gone ahead and built the world's biggest solar power plant.
The Kamuthi Solar Power Project in Tamil Nadu has a 648 megawatt capacity — or enough to power 150,000 homes — topping the 550 megawatts of power produced by California's Topaz Solar Farm.
The Kamuthi facility has 2.5 million solar panels which are cleaned daily by solar-powered robots.
Built in eight months at the cost of US$679 million, the Kamuthi facility has 2.5 million solar panels. The panels are cleaned daily by solar-powered robots. Global News compared the 2,500-acre site to the size of 60 Taj Mahals.
According to Al Jazeera, this new plant has pushed India's installed solar capacity past 10 gigawatts, which should make the country "the world's third-biggest solar market from next year onwards, after China and the U.S."
A bird's eye view of the sprawling Kamuthi Solar Power Project in Tamil Nadu, India. (Photo: Adani Green Energy Limited)
India's ambitious renewable energy plan is the country's attempt to address not just climate change -- it is the one of the world's top 10 greenhouse gas emitters — but also the air quality issues that have plagued major cities such as New Delhi.
It's India's goal to produce 40 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2022, including powering 60 million homes with solar.
The Kamuthi plant is one of nine operated by Adani Green Energy Limited across India. Established last year, the company set itself an ambitious goal to generate 10,000 megawatts of solar power within the next five years.
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