Wind Energy Tariffs Stable In India’s 1.2 Gigawatt Auction
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The sixth national-level wind energy auction in India witnessed stable, and relatively high, tariff bids from project developers. The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) had offered 1.2 gigawatts in its fifth auction, after initially offering 2 gigawatts.
The latest wind energy auction by SECI, which was concluded late last month, witnessed the greatest tariff being quoted by project developers since the very first auction that SECI held in February 2017. The February 2017 auction — the first-ever for wind energy projects in India — had yielded a lowest bid of Rs 3.46/kWh (¢4.70/kWh), with just of 1 gigawatt capacity auctioned. The lowest bid quoted in the latest tender is Rs 2.76/kWh (¢3.75/kWh).
The fifth trench of SECI wind auctions was not popular among prospective developers due to concerns over availability of sufficient transmission infrastructure to support the new projects. SECI had initially planned to offer 2 gigawatts. The total capacity bid was, however, just 1.69 gigawatts with several big companies missing from the list of prospective developers.
We had reported in August that SECI had decided to reduce the capacity on offer from 2 gigawatts to 1.2 gigawatts. Four developers — Alfanar Energy, ReNew Power, Sprng Energy, and Adani Green Energy — submitted bids to develop 300 megawatts of capacity each. Sprng Energy was reportedly missing from list of final bidders.
Successful bidders include Torrent Power (115 megawatts), Adani Green Energy (300 megawatts), Alfanar (300 megawatts), SITAC RE (300 megawatts), Ecoren Energy (175 megawatts), and ReNew Power (10 megawatts). All bids ranged between Rs 2.76/kWh (¢3.75/kWh) and Rs 2.77/kWh (¢3.76/kWh). With this win, Adani Green Energy closed the gap with ReNew Power in terms of cumulative capacity won in all wind auctions to just 200 megawatts. ReNew Power remains the largest company in terms of cumulative capacity won so far, with Adani now close behind.
Some of the major and frequent participants that were missing from this auction include Mytrah Energy, Inox Wind, Green Infra, Sprng Energy, and Hero Future Energies.
The latest tariffs were in-line with the previous national-level tender brought in by NTPC Limited for the same capacity. Compared to the fourth tranche of SECI, where 2 gigawatt capacity was auctioned, the bids increased by around 10%.
India’s total wind energy capacity auctioned now stands at 9.85 gigawatts. SECI had planned to auction 2.5 gigawatt wind energy capacity in the sixth trench. The tender no longer appears on SECI’s website, and its fate remains uncertain, until concerns over transmission infrastructure are addressed to developers’ satisfaction.
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