Inside the World’s Biggest Renewable Energy Park

The terrain is incredibly flat, covered in white salt, and mostly empty — a desolate area where even a cell phone signal is nonexistent. The scenery appears to go on forever as you travel through it.Gujarat’s salt flats, a territory that was extremely salty and wet, and was once seen as unfit for use.

Then, abruptly, the skyline changes. Rows of massive power poles extend into the horizon, columns of trucks transportturbine bladeslonger than airplane wings, and a growth ofsolarpanels emerge from the muddy ground.

This is Khavda, where Indiaconstructing the world’s biggest renewable energy projectenergyproject. Covering 726 square kilometers – roughly seven times the size of the city of Paris – the KhavdaRenewable EnergyThe park is anticipated to produce 30 gigawatts of energy by integrating solar and wind power at the same location in the west.India.

Once fully functional, the site will generate enough power to supply a nation comparable in size to Chile or the Netherlands.Chinait could be at the forefront of the global competition in terms of the speed at which it is expanding its renewable energy capacity, but there isn’t another location anywhere else in the world that matches Khavda.

Each turbine stands approximately 200 meters in height. Each blade, measuring 78 meters in length, is moved on custom trailers that operate at sunrise, before the heat and wind pose risks to construction. The location will ultimately include almost 60 million solar panels, with many installed on trackers that adjust throughout the day to capture the most sunlight. During the night, wind speeds increase, enabling the turbines to compensate as solar power production decreases.

Khavda is approaching at a time whenIndiaits power system is growing quickly to matchChina, which generates approximately 1.8 terawatts, accounts for 40 percent of the world’s installed renewable energy capacity and maintains a strong hold over the supply chains involved in producing solar panels and batteries.

Last year, IndiaReached the target of increasing renewable energy capacity by 50 gigawatts – one of the biggest yearly increases worldwide – raising its overall non-fossil fuel capacity to approximately 262 gigawatts. This now exceeds half of its total generating capacity, which is roughly 510 gigawatts.

But numerous questions still persist. Can renewable energy sources be developed on a sufficient scale to provide consistent electricity to a rapidly expanding population?economythat still depends significantly on coal? Will India’s inconsistent transmission system be improved quickly enough to deliver all this renewable energy to homes and businesses? And what occurs if India has to accomplish all of this independently, without depending on imports fromChina?

Most of the Khavda project is being developed by Adani Green Energy and signifies a significant investment for the broader region.Adani Group, which is also India’s biggest coal importer and runs some of the more disputed coal mining projects globally.

It’s not exactly a shift from dirty coal to renewable energy sources – Adani’s coal business won’t be closed anytime soon. Instead, the goal of adding 50 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade is considered a smart business move, helping to diversify India’s energy sources.

Ashish Khanna, the chief executive officer of Adani Green Energy, statesThe IndependentThe company is dedicated to addressing the rising energy needs of the world’s fastest-expanding major economy, and this must be achieved through a combination of sources.

India still accounts for one-fourth of the global average in terms of electricity consumption per person,” he states. “If the GDP grows by six to seven percent, electricity demand tends to increase by nearly nine percent. The nation requires energy on a large scale, and renewable power will be essential in fulfilling this need.

Khanna states that India is not yet capable of fulfilling its energy requirements solely through renewable sources, contending that they need to be used alongside coal while demand keeps increasing.

We require consistent power supply (from sources like conventional coal-fired plants) and we also need renewable energy; they must work together,” he explains. “The issue isn’t about choosing one over the other, but rather determining the share from each source and the associated costs.

What Khanna outlines is unfolding throughout India’s energy sector. Although coal continues to be the main source of electricity generation – the power that is actually consumed – new capacity development is predominantly focused on renewable sources, according to Charith Konda, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

What you’re witnessing in Khavda is similar to what’s occurring throughout the country,” he states. “Approximately 70 to 80 percent of new power capacity added each quarter during the past three to four years has been from solar and wind sources. They are guided by economics and what is happening in policy.

The limitation, according to Konda, is not the speed at which renewable energy infrastructure is developed, but rather how the electricity is distributed after it’s constructed, via a grid “designed for thermal power plants” that now needs to handle energy that is inherently variable.

At Khavda, this limitation is being tackled via engineering decisions, starting with the integration of solar and wind energy at one location.

Preparing the project site involved completely redeveloping the landscape. The soil is highly salty and unstable, making traditional foundations unsuitable. Each turbine is placed on a deep stone-column base, which is excavated 20-30 feet into the ground and strengthened with concrete. The composition of the soil varies every few meters, requiring each wind turbine location to be examined individually.

“This isn’t a turbine that can be simply taken from a European platform and installed in India. We needed to approach it from an Indian perspective,” explains Milind Kulkarni, CEO of Adani Wind.

Another significant limitation was the intense heat. During the summer, temperatures in Khavda can reach 50C. Most turbines built for milder climates experience reduced performance or need to be turned off in these circumstances.

Our turbine is built to function at 50C without any reduction in performance,” Kulkarni states. “This is one of the few turbines in its category that can achieve this.

Next, there was the issue of water. Groundwater in Khavda is more saline than seawater, with total dissolved solids reaching nearly 30,000 milligrams per liter. Currently, desalination facilities provide potable water for employees and cooling water for the operations. Before power generation could start, roads, drainage systems, mobile communication infrastructure, and housing had to be built.

Solar panels that are exposed to air containing salt require special coatings and regular cleaning, which is performed by robotic systems that do not use water to prevent the waste of desalinated water.

Construction at the location started in April 2023. In approximately nine months,solar powerhad already been feeding into the grid. Wind power came online shortly thereafter, and now seven gigawatts are already in use. The goal is to increase capacity by four to five gigawatts annually.

The website’s layout demonstrates an effort to tackle one of the major challenges in renewable energy: inconsistency. Solar and wind power are integrated because their production cycles work well together. Solar energy is highest during daylight hours, while wind activity increases at night. When used together, they help stabilize the energy supply, though they don’t completely fill in the gaps.

That leftover space is where storage becomes essential.

Adani has recently revealed plans to construct India’s biggest battery energy storage system in Khavda, a 1,126 megawatt project with a storage capacity of 3,530 megawatt hours. This system, which is set to be completed by March 2026, aims to store surplus electricity and supply it when generation is low, aiding in grid stability and decreasing dependence on fossil fuel backups.

The foundation of a future powered by renewable energy is energy storage,Gautam Adani, a multibillionaire and head of the Adani conglomerate, stated in a declaration regarding the project.

The firm aims to increase its battery storage capability to 50 gigawatt hours over the next five years.

Chris Wright, chief analyst at CarbonBridge, states theAdani GroupAustralia’s global reputation remains influenced by issues related to its coal industry. Within Australia, this sector is still growing, and significant questions are being raised about the benefits for Australians, considering disputes over mine safety, lower royalties, and insufficient corporate tax income.

However, he points out that the group’s latest financial report indicates that its investment in renewable energy is yielding results, “supporting the company’s declining coal trading operations.”

Adani has established himself and his companies as one of the leading global industrial magnates of the 21st century, with their expansion ofsolar power”is truly amazing,” he states.

If we are searching for significant markers in the worldwide shift away from fossil fuels, 2025 represented a notable turning point. Coal-powered electricity generationfell for both India and China for the first timefor over five decades, the expansion of new solar and wind energy capacity has kept pace with increasing electricity needs.

This is occurring at a time when climate efforts in much of the West have slowed, particularly in the US under Donald Trump.reversing its clean-energy pledgesand European governments placing greater emphasis on energy security than on reducing emissions.

Maybe there is optimism in the fact that, in India at least, the change is being influenced more by practical, economic factors rather than international pressure or top-down commitments such as the Paris Agreement – which have shown to be susceptible to changing political conditions.

Located in the heart of a large expanse of new turbines and solar panels, it’s evident that the clean energy competition is not over. It has simply moved to more challenging areas, requiring greater compromises, and regions where expansion, rather than environmental goals, is driving the progress.

This piece was created as part of The Independent’sRethinking Global Aid project

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