The Russian heat and power supplier T Plus, a unit of Russia-based industrial conglomerate Renova, has connected the second section of its Orsk solar photovoltaic plant to the grid. The new unit, which has a capacity of 15 MW, has increased the power of the PV plant to 40 MW.

The first 25 MW section was completed in December 2015, while work on the second part of the project began in November 2016. The company used 160,110 modules for the new section of the plant, which spreads on a surface or around 100 hectares.

The facility was officially inaugurated by the region’s governor Yuri Berg, who said that, including these 15 MWs, there are now 90 MW of operational PV plants in Orenburg. T Plus added that it is now also planning to build another two solar plants in the region, with a combined capacity of 105 MW, by the end of 2019. The two installations will be located in the Sorochinsk and Novosergievsky districts, respectively.

In the latest auction for large-scale solar, wind and hydropower projects held by the Russian government in June, T Plus secured contracts to build 70 MW in the regions of Orenburg (15 MW), Samara (30 MW), and Saratov (25 MW). Russia’s Administrator of the Trading System has allocated approximately 520 MW of PV capacity through the auction.

Overall, T Plus owns and operaters 59 power plants, more than 400 boiler houses and almost 15 thousand kilometers of heat supply networks. Its parent company, the Renova group, is active in the solar industry through Hevel Solar, a PV module producer and project developers it owns in a joint venture with Russian nanotechnology provider Rusnano.