Indian companies will be bidding on 750 megawatts of solar projects
this week as part of a government- funded support program in the western
states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. “Tenders for setting up 500 megawatts of capacity in Maharashtra and
250 megawatts in Gujarat’s Charanka solar park will be out this week and
awarded in three months,” Ashvini Kumar, managing director at Solar
Energy Corp. of India, the implementing agency for central government’s
grid-connected solar programs, said Tuesday in an interview.
The bids are part of the second phase of the National Solar Mission
through which capacity of at least 2 gigawatts will be auctioned
featuring 21 billion rupees ($322 million) of government-funded support. Of the remaining capacity, tenders for 500 megawatts each will be
offered in the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in a month
and later in Uttar Pradesh in the north, Kumar said. Initially the program fixed tariffs at 5.43 rupees a kilowatt-hour
and proposed to shortlist the bidders requiring the least funding
assistance from the government.
Now the government will conduct a two-stage bidding process as
companies are expected to quote zero funding support after solar tariffs
hit new lows in the auctions conducted in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana
the past month.
“Those companies that quote zero funding support will have to then
participate in tariff-based bidding,” Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at
the ministry of new and renewable energy told Bloomberg. This will
enable auctioning of more than 2 gigawatts of solar capacity for the
same amount of funding support, he said. India aims to install 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022 under the
National Solar Mission at an estimated investment of $100 billion.
Current solar capacity in the country is just over 4 gigawatts.
©2015 Bloomberg News
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/india-set-to-auction-750-megawatts-of-solar-projects.html
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