Maruti Suzuki India has set up a 20 MW solar carport at its facility in Manesar, Haryana. The project is expected to contribute 28,000 MWh per annum to the company’s energy requirements.

The company claims that the power generated from this project will be equivalent to the energy required to produce over 67,000 cars annually.

According to the company, this is Asia’s largest solar carport.

The solar carport is designed with the lowest area per unit of power generation using the East-West direction concept. With the East-West direction concept, the developers can add more rows and panels, providing greater generation capacity in minimum land area.

The facility has space to park about 9,000 of the company’s finished vehicles.

Companies are keen on efficiently utilizing the available space to save on energy costs and achieve sustainability objectives. Solar carports are ideal for converting an otherwise unusable space to produce green power. In addition to generating solar power, carports have the additional advantage of providing covered parking spaces. They have better visibility than the usual rooftop solar systems and help companies add climate mitigation initiatives to their brand narrative.

Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director & CEO, said, “Harnessing renewable energy is the need of the hour. Our company has been committed to the cause of expanding the use of sustainable energy options to optimize our operations. The power generation from this initiative will constitute over 11.5 % of the power requirement of the facility at Manesar. We continue to constantly enhance our efforts to expand the use of clean resources in our operations.”

In 2020, Maruti Suzuki commissioned a 5 MW solar carport at its Gurugram facility. The project was intended to cater to the internal energy needs of the facility and synchronized with a captive power project.

With the new 20 MW addition, the company’s cumulative solar power capacity across its plants now stands at 26.3 MW, including the 1.3 MW solar plant installed in 2014.

The commercial and industrial sector has seen a considerable rise in demand for solar to meet their energy requirements at cheaper tariffs and meet their sustainability goals simultaneously.

In June 2022, Suzuki Motor Gujarat, a subsidiary of Suzuki, began procuring power from a 17.6 MW hybrid wind and solar power project installed by ReNew Power through an offsite corporate power purchase agreement.

In March this year, Maruti Suzuki India’s parent company Suzuki Motor Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with Gujarat to invest approximately 150 billion yen (~$1.13 billion) in local manufacturing of battery electric vehicles (BEV) and BEV batteries.