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Charanaka, a village nestled in a remote corner of Patan district near Radhanpur in north Gujarat is destined to become the state’s hub of solar power generation . Solar panels will be laid on close to 3,000 acres of land in this village, where the state government is going to set up a ‘Gujarat Solar Park’ at an investment of Rs 8,000 crore. The apex state utility, Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL), is currently in the process of entering into long term power purchase with agreements with 80 solar power project investors to commission almost 1,000 MW of generation capacity. This capacity will help procure 1,700 million units of environment friendly electricity per annum.

Many of these 80 developers will set up their generation facilities ranging from 1-45 MW units at Gujarat Solar Park. In first phase, developers will commission 500 MW of generation capacity at the park. The Centre’s National Solar Mission aims to install 1,000 MW of grid solar power by 2013, and 20,000 MW by 2022.

Interestingly, Gujarat is the lone state which is in the process of inking power purchase agreements to procure 965 MW of solar power from 80 project developers to attract investments of Rs 15,000 crore in the next couple of years.

The state government has already acquired 2,500 acre of land for the park. It is expected to have basic infrastructure in place by December, just ahead of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, 2011 (a state-sponsored biannual event for attracting investments in Gujarat).

The project is part of the Solar Power Policy-2009, which proposes to encourage generation of green power. Parts of North Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra regions have been identified to have optimum solar power plant load factor.

Charanaka in North Gujarat will be the first site to be developed. According to the state Power ministry, large parts of the state have solar insolation of 5.8-6.0kWh per metre square per day. Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. The chosen site of Charanka has an insolation of 5.9kWh per metre square per day, said a state government official.

Developers have already started work at the site as the government intends to showcase the site to the participants of the Vibrant summit, said a state government official.

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