The Ongoing Auction May See a Drop in Wind Power Tariff

After a huge drop in solar tariff to an amount of Rs 2.97/unit, the wind energy rates may drop below Rs 4.5 /unit in the current auction for capacity of upto 1000 MW.

The state-run company – Solar Energy Corporation of India will conduct a competitive tariff-based competition. It will have wind power capacity of a total of 1000 MW for supplying wind energy in non-windy states.

A source reported, “The wind power tariff quoted by the some of bidders has come down to around Rs 4.50 per unit. The auction is still on and may conclude late in the evening. There are chances that tariff can further come down in view of competitive capital costs and cheaper credit.”

Although no benchmark tariff was allocated by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for the auction, the normal tariff of wind energy is around Rs 5/unit, which is predicted to fall further.

As per a reliable source, the auction is seeing a positive response from many leading firms. Many companies are ready to grab hold of the opportunity.

Last year, the SECI had floated wind power tender with a total capacity of 1,000 Megawatt. The auction is tariff based and whoever quotes the least price (power tariff) will be awarded with the tender.

A long-term energy purchase agreement of the designated developers would be signed between SECI and the non-windy states. Power would be transmitted to the non-windy states via a central transmission utility.

As per the scheme, the govt. will not be responsible for either acquiring land or any equipment. These tasks would be carried out solely by the developers. The developers would also be responsible for running and maintaining their plants.

The scheme further elaborates that the project capacity would be decided by SECI for every tender, but the capacity is not to be less than 25 Megawatt for a single power project developer at 1 site.

SECI is the primary agency for bringing this scheme into action and is working towards improving the e-bidding process tailed by e-reverse bidding for eligible auctioneers. SECI will also implement a suitable method for project monitoring.

For the implementation of this particular scheme, no extra funding will be provided by the Indian ministry to SECI. The main aim of this scheme is to provide wind energy to the wind energy deprived states at a reasonable price determined by transparent bidding.

The entire wind energy deployment project started in India way back in 1990s. Until now, a total wind power capacity of 28.08 GW has been installed, summing up to around 9 percent of gross installed capacity of 310 Gigawatt.

India ranks in the 4th position globally following China, the United States, and Germany for wind power installation. India has set a target of achieving 175 GW power from renewable sources by the year 2024 out of which wind energy holds a stake of 60 Gigawatt.