Today Green Energy and Asian Fab have emerged as the lowest bidders quoting less than Rs 6.75 per KWh in 500 MW solar energy tender from Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd. (KREDL).
Today had to close the bid of 20 MW at Rs 6.71 per KWh while Asian accepted 10 MW at Rs. 6.74 per KWh.
The highest bidding has been at Rs.7.12 for 20 MW, shared by Surana and Today Green.
SunEdison has won the biggest share 150 MW in five PV projects, with Azure Power and Welspun Renewable Energy grabbing the second and third positions respectively with 140 MW and 100 MW respectively.
Overall 44 developers participated in the bid. KREDL has allotted 465 MW out of the total 500 MW while 35 MW was kept aside in light of the writ petition of Reitz India, which has been disqualified from the bid due to technical errors in the documents, as per KREDL website.
The bid shows the growing acceptance of solar energy in the state. Earlier in July, KREDL’s lowest bid rate was Rs 6.66 per KWh and the highest was Rs. 7.99 per KWh. It is to be noted that Azure Power was the only bidder under Rs.7 (10 MW) at this rate during this bid.
In the latest bid approximately 350 MW of capacity was sold below Rs. 7, marking a further decline in the solar energy price, which is again good news for the energy starving country.
Recently Andhra Pradesh, the neighboring state of Karnataka, invited bid for 500 MW capacity, and received bids as low as around Rs. 5.3 per KWh from foreign bidders like First Solar.
In early 2013, a similar auction in the Western state of Rajasthan produced one of the lowest bids at that time (Rs 6.45/kWh) while the highest was Rs 8.25/kWh. Â Almost during the same period, one of the bidders quoted Rs 5.97/kWh in Tamil Nadu, another southern state in India.
American solar companies like SunEdison, Azure and First Solar are betting big in Indian solar market.
Also read: India green pasture for foreign solar PV manufacturers
SunEdison has already achieved approximately 100 MW of capacity in India. It recently signed a MoU with the government of Rajasthan to build 5,000 MW of solar projects in the state, in lots of 500 MW.
Rajani Baburajan