India's Moser Baer to spend $1 B on solar plants in 9 months

Moser Baer is investing $1 billion in solar projects with a cumulative capacity of 300 MW in the country and abroad in the next nine months.

“We are well-funded right now, we raised around $1 billion in the last 12 months. We commissioned 100 MW in solar projects from April-September, 2011, and would add 300 MW more through solar in the next nine months,” Moser Baer India Executive Director Ratul Puri said.

These projects would be set up in Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal and Rajasthan in India, as well as abroad in countries like Germany, Italy, the UK. “It would be half and half, that is, 150 MW projects in India and the same abroad,” Puri said.

The company also has plans to augment its solar power generation capacity to 1 GW, or 1,000 MW, by 2015. The company recently commissioned a 23.8-MW solar farm at Lauta, in Germany. The project has been constructed with long-term debt funding from DKB Bank, Germany, which has also financed its Thuringen and Meissens projects.

Moser Baer Clean Energy also commissioned a 30-MW solar farm, developed at an approximate investment of Rs 465 crore, in Banaskantha district of Gujarat in October this year.

The solar farm, spread over 305 acres of land, is likely to generate about 52 million Kwh of energy, which would provide electricity to nearly 50,000 homes everyday and save about 50,000 tonne in carbon emissions annually.