Acme Group has announced that it’s on track to get the first half of it’s first 10 MW solar thermal power plant online (in Rajasthan) at the beginning of 2010. The plant uses the same technology as in eSolar’s newly commissioned plant in California. Acme has active plans for a further 230 MW, and thinks it can really bring the cost down.
Acme says the initial plant will cost about $3.14 million per megawatt, but can reduce costs to $1.68 million per megawatt as more projects get built. That’s partly because of economies of scale and lower cost for materials in India, but more because of the nation’s new National Solar Mission, which establishes new feed-in tariffs and financing possibilities.
All this could mean, according to the company, that solar thermal could drop in price to 12¢ per kilowatt-hour by 2015.
Acme is also building a 5 MW plant in Maharashtra, a 110 MW plant in Gujarat, and a 100 MW plant in Madhya Pradesh.
