Subject: Fw: Gujarat article in The Times
From: Amitabh Desai <[email-masked]>
To: Angel Urena <[email-masked]>, Valerie Alexander <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Elizabeth Bibi <[email-masked]>, "Bruce Lindsey" <[email-masked]>, Laura Graham <[email-masked]>, Doug Band - PC <[email-masked]>, Justin Cooper <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Bari Lurie contact <[email-masked]>, "Hannah Richert - PC" <[email-masked]>, Jon Davidson - President Clinton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:16:30 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: Ira Magaziner
To: Amitabh Desai
Cc: Matthew Klein
Sent: Thu Apr 26 05:06:26 2012
Subject: FW: Gujarat article in The Times

Ami:

President Clinton may want to know about this. It is an article in the London Times about the launch of the Gujarat solar park. The book put out by the Gujarat Government as well as this and other articles acknowledge our role.

Ira

-----Original Message-----
From: Tatiana Zervos 
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 4:20 AM
To: James Baird; Ira Magaziner
Cc: Tony Wood; [email-masked]; Amit Jain
Subject: RE: Gujarat article in The Times

Please find the article James referred to attached and below.   
--------------------
Solar giant turns the desert green (and blue) in Gujarat By Robin Pagnamenta, 23 April 2012

Asia’s mightiest solar power farm has been switched on in the Indian desert state of Gujarat. It is part of a drive to transform the region into one of the world’s leading green energy producers and to provide electricity to some of the 400 million people who still have no access to it.

The Gujarat Solar Park, which spans a remote 3,000 acres near the border with Pakistan, started generating 214 megawatts of electricity, sufficient to power 90,000 British households, over the weekend. The huge array of solar panels outstrips China’s 200MW Golmud Solar Park as the biggest in Asia. An official said that eventually the facility would reach a capacity of 1,000MW, bigger than any other single existing solar power plant in the world.

India, which is heavily dependent on imported coal, oil and gas for its energy requirements, is still chronically short of electricity and is aiming to build 20,000 megawatts of solar capacity by 2020.

Alan Rosling, chairman of Kiran Energy, one of about 20 developers involved in the project, said that Gujarat was following a unique development model for the solar farm, which was first conceived by the US-based Clinton Foundation.

Rather than a single developer, the Gujarat Solar Park is owned by the government. It has leased out tracts of land plus access to common services – including a grid connection, 24 hour security, access to water and new roads – to a variety of solar developers, who will then pay an annual rent to use the facility.

Dr. Horst J. Kayser, chief executive of AEG Power Solutions, a German company which opened a plant in Bangalore to manufacture solar panels for the park and other Indian projects, said: “Such multi-user model parks are going to be replicated in the future due to the sheer fact that this develops the overall infrastructure and the living standards of these areas.”

About $600 million has already been ploughed into the Gujarat Solar Park by foreign companies including Germany’s Bosch, Japan’s Sharp and America’s First Solar as well as Indian groups like Tata.

The government of Gujarat has also pledged to purchase the electricity generated from the site at a fixed cost, to ensure developers can be confident of future returns. “In India, there are a lot of issues around land security and ownership as well as getting the right permits so this is really a very attractive model,” said Mr Rosling.

The Gujarat Solar Park now represents more than 25 per cent of India’s total installed solar capacity of 840 megawatts across the country.

Gujarat is already developing a second solar power park 60km away on the same multi-user principle at another location, which is being developed with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank. The organization has pledged funding of $500 million.

“Gujarat is clearly the solar capital of India,” said Mr Rosling, whose company has leased a 150 acre plot on the site.

Dr Horst said India was a highly attractive market for solar, because its economy is growing at 7 per cent and there is huge unmet demand for power across the country. India’s “abundant irradiation” - sunshine - makes solar power a good commercial proposition, especially with the falling cost of solar technologies, he added.