Indian State Of Rajasthan Announces 1 Gigawatt Solar Power Tender

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The western Indian state of Rajasthan continues to expand its solar power capacity and has issued a new tender with over 1 gigawatt of capacity.

The Indian state of Rajasthan is set to develop 1,070 megawatts of solar parks to increase its share of renewable in overall energy mix. The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has invited bids for grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) power projects to be set up in the state.

The developers have to submit a single bid for any capacity starting from a minimum of 10 megawatts to a maximum of 1,070 megawatts. The projects will be implemented under a build-own-operate basis and can be set up in any location of the Rajasthan state. 

The successful bidder will sign the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with SECI for the period of 25 years. The power produced from the projects will be sold to Rajasthan Urja Vikas Nigam Limited.

Rajasthan has a target to procure 21% from the solar by 2023-24 as part of its Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO). The current installed solar capacity of the state stands at 5.2 gigawatts, and 20 gigawatts worth of projects are in different stages of development.

Recently, Rajasthan became the first state in India to allocate solar projects for farmers. Under the Centre’s scheme, Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation (RREC) allotted plants of 722-megawatts of capacity to 623 farmers. Project developers, on behalf of farmers, can install the solar plants on their barren or semi-barren land and the power generated from the plants can be sold to the discoms, thus enabling income generation to the poor farmers.

Rajasthan also hosts the largest operational solar power park in India. In March this year, with the commissioning of a 300-megawatt project, the Bhadla solar power park reached an operational capacity of 2,245 megawatts.