NTPC gets 500 MW solar project management contract from Mali 

State-owned NTPC has bagged a project management consultancy contract from the Republic of Mali to develop a 500 MW Solar Park in the country.  

Ambassador of Mali, Sekou Kasse, handed over the contract award letter to NTPC CMD Gurdeep Singh in the presence of India’s power minister and President of International Solar Alliance (ISA), R.K. Singh.

Earlier, in January, the Republic of Togo, a West African nation, became the first ISA member to avail the services of NTPC. It engaged the power producer to provide project management consultancy support for the development of a 285 MW Solar Park in Togo.

Notably, NTPC plans to anchor 10 GW of solar parks in ISA member countries over two years.

Solar parks are being showcased as a best practice from India which started these as a novel concept and has commissioned several projects, thus bringing down the cost of solar energy substantially, bringing in investment, creating employment and benefitting the environment in the process. 

The Republic of Mali has been taking various initiatives towards the country’s energy security, especially to increase access to electricity for its citizens, with a focus on solar power and applications. The development of solar projects in Mali will make a considerable impact on the socio-economic growth of Mali.

As a project management consultant, NTPC will carry out various activities to select solar project developers on a competitive basis for setting up projects on ownership basis and entering into power purchase agreements with government-designated entities.

The project management consultancy charges of NTPC will be recovered from the selected solar project developers. Based on the feasibility, NTPC may also develop solar projects by putting its own equity in countries where the feed-in tariff is in force.