Tangedco invites bids to purchase land for renewable energy park

The move comes amid its plan to set up a 500-megawatt solar photovoltaic park at Kadaladi in Ramanathapuram failed to take off. Tangedco had started land acquisition to set up a 4,000 MW thermal power plant at Kadaladi but it ran into trouble over obtaining environmental clearance.

Tangedco has invited bids to purchase the lands for the Renewable Energy Park to go ahead with its ambitious solar power development. A private solar power developer said, unlike thermal power projects, solar power plants are land-intensive. “One megawatt of the solar power plant would require five acres of land. For a 500 MW solar power park, it would require a minimum of 2,500 acres and also land for the setting up of substations and other infrastructure,” he said.

The private developer also noted that Tangedco might have decided to go for the purchase of the land parcel to circumvent the Land Acquisition Act and to avoid paying huge compensation and also legal disputes. “Nowadays, it is increasingly getting difficult to purchase lands of the solar projects as local people are opposing it for one or other reasons,” he added.

An official said purchasing the land parcel would be the easier way forward than going through the land acquisition process, which takes a long time. “We need to achieve the solar power generation target set by the centre. Hence the decision to go for land purchase,” he noted.