A solar auction held by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in the Indian state of Maharashtra has awarded large portions of the available 450 MW capacity to two well-known foreign firms.
While Indian developer Vijay Printing Press Private Limited secured the lowest winning bid of INR 4.42/kWh ($0.067/kWh) without viability gap funding (VGF), the benchmark tariff awarded to the remaining bidders and offered in conjunction with the VGF scheme was INR 4.43 ($0.069/kWh), which is the lowest such price achieved under the scheme anywhere in India.
Perhaps more noteworthy, however, was the presence of two internationally renowned solar firms on the winning bid sheet. Chinas Canadian Solar walked away with 80 MW of project capacity under its arm, while British renewables developer Lightsource also enjoyed success, securing 50 MW of capacity under the auction, which was Phase II, Batch 4 for Maharashtras part in the National Solar Mission (NSM).
Other winners included Mumbai-based SolarEdge Power and Energy Private Limited (not to be confused with Israeli power optimizer specialist SolarEdge), which was awarded 130 MW of capacity, Neel Metal (awarded 100 MW) and Essel (awarded 60 MW).
SECI first issued the tender documents in June, and will sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) with all of the winning companies, in addition to power sale agreements with power distribution companies and utilities at a pre-set tariff of INR 5/kWh.
Lightsource CEO Nick Boyle said that he was "delighted" to have taken the first steps towards realizing the firms ambitions in the Indian solar market. "The Indian government has a huge appetite for solar energy and we believe that Lightsource will contribute significantly towards their targets."
Lightsource was a leading player in the British solar boom over the past 24 months, but has since expanded its development efforts into many of the worlds more dynamic markets after regressive government changes all-but stripped support and subsidy for solar projects in the U.K.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
1 comment
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.