Two clean energy projects in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu are world leaders in both their scale and innovation, Roger Harrabin reports for The Guardian.

The south India state is home to the world’s first industrial plant to capture carbon dioxide emissions from a coal boiler and use these emissions to make valuable chemicals, a breakthrough innovation projected to save 60,000 tons of CO2 emissions every year. The operation, which itself produces almost zero emissions, strips carbon dioxide from the coal boiler and uses the emissions as an ingredient in baking soda and and other compounds.

Tamil Nadu also boasts the world’s largest solar farm, just 100 kilometers away. The Kamuthi solar plant produces power for 150,000 homes on a 10 sq km site.