Bharti Airtel has commissioned a new 21-megawatt solar power plant in Buldhana district of Maharashtra as part of its commitment to reduce carbon footprint and contribute to the global efforts to curb the effects of climate change. The company expects the solar-powered unit to reduce 25,517 tonnes in carbon emissions annually.
The captive power unit, spread over 80 acres, has been set up by Airtel in partnership with Avaada to supply clean energy to Airtel’s Nxtra data centres and switching centres in Maharashtra, the company said in a statement.
“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 the next 12 months and contribute to Airtel’s overall GHG emission reduction targets,” Nxtra by Airtel CEO Rajesh Tapadia said.
Nxtra by Airtel has already commissioned two captive solar power units of 14 MW each in Uttar Pradesh.
The company claims to have the largest network of data centres in India with 11 large and 120 edge data centres across the country and will invest over ₹5,000 crore over the next four years to expand its capacity by three times.
Airtel has committed to reducing absolute Scope 1 and 2 Green House Gas (GHG) emissions across its operations by 50.2% by the financial year 2031, considering FY 2021 as the base year. Airtel has also committed to reducing absolute scope 3 GHG emissions by 42% over the same timeframe.
