Airtel Commissions 21 MW Solar Power Plant In Maharashtra To Supply Clean Energy To Its Data Centres

Bharti Airtel on Tuesday (25 January) announced the commissioning of a new 21 MW solar power plant in Maharashtra's Bhuldana district as part of the company’s commitment to progressively reduce its carbon footprint and contribute to the global efforts to curb the effects of climate change, a company statement said.

The captive power unit, which is spread over 80 acres, has been set up by Airtel in partnership with Avaada to supply clean energy to large and edge data centers of 'Nxtra by Airtel', and switching centers in Maharashtra.

The company expects a significant reduction of 25,517 tonnes in carbon emissions annually through this unit.

“Sustainability is a priority area for Nxtra by Airtel. This is yet another step towards fulfilling our commitment to source more than 50% power requirements of our data centres through renewable energy sources in next 12 months and contribute to Airtel’s overall GHG emission reduction targets," said Rajesh Tapadia, CEO, Nxtra by Airtel, according to the company statement.

Nxtra by Airtel has already commissioned two captive solar power units of 14 MW each in theUttar Pradesh as part of its focus on green energy sources to power its growing operations.

The company has the largest network of data centers in India with 11 large and 120 edge data centers across the country and will invest over Rs 5000 cr over the next four years to expand its capacity by 3 times, it said.