BPCL (Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited) has announced to set off a renewable energy plant of 1GW in Rajasthan. This plant will produce 1GW till 2025 and then further BPCL has targeted the addition of 10GW RE till 2040. BPCL is a government-owned company and the second-largest oil producer in India. The company has planned for an RE plant in Rajasthan because Rajasthan is the largest state in India in terms of renewable power generation. The total installed capacity of Rajasthan is 21.2GW and has an unused potential of 268 GW of Solar power. A huge number of domestic and foreign private players have started investing in RE in Rajasthan to grab unused potential opportunities. Rajasthan also has five states in a border link such as Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab, so the logistics cost is also less and the Govt of Rajasthan is also supporting the RE growth by providing incentives and schemes to manufacturers. Rajasthan is mostly rich in Solar capacity as 77% of total RE installed is solar power and 22.1% is wind power. So BPCL may set up a solar power-based plant in Rajasthan.
The company has also planned to set up 7000 charging stations across India for electric vehicles by 2027. The tariff for renewable energy is hovering around INR 2-2.5 rs/unit as of the current scenario and the thermal power tariff is near INR 5-5.5 rs/unit. BPCL needs the power to operate the charging stations and that is the reason why BPCL is investing in RE power generation. This step will cut the power cost for charging stations.