The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) yesterday saw a record low winning tariff on Rs 2.36 per kilowatt-hour for its 2GW interstate transmission system (ISTS) solar PV project under (Tranche-IX).
The winning tariff came from, Spanish solar power developer Solarpack. In the coming months, Solarpack will sign a 25 year long PPA for the project which will be located in the state of Rajasthan and is expected to be commissioned during 2022. The project will represent a total investment of an estimated € 129 million.
"The Company has presented today an offer for the sale of the energy of its 396 MW project, winning 15 percent of the total bid at a sale price of 2.36 INR/kWh (equivalent to approx. € 28/MWh)," Solarpack said in its statement.
The main factors for the record low tariff has been the access to low-cost finance, zero safeguard duty for developers and pass-through from Basic Custom duty (BCD) under “Change In-law” provision in this specific period,” suggests JMK research.
SECI conducted its first reverse auction for its 2GW solar tender yesterday after a gap of nearly four months due to the lockdown and had received a strong response from the developers last week with bids for more than 4.3 GW of capacity.
However, research cites that most of the winners have been international developers and three of the winners in particular – Solarpack, ENEL, and IB Vogt have no pipeline of solar projects but might be aggressive to build their portfolio.
Further, AMP Solar too has a project pipeline of only 100 MW in addition to a few other small projects under the Open access Corporate PPA route.
Of the bidders, only EDEN, ReNew, and Ayana were the ones with significant solar project portfolio.
