India weighing 750 MW solar auction

Share

India is poised to announce later this month the re-introduction of its auction process to invite bids for 750 MW-worth of solar power plant licenses.

The proposal has been put forward by the country’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and is currently awaiting Cabinet approval. A decision on whether to host the auction – the first in two years – is expected within ten days.

"The bidding documents are all ready," said Ministry joint-secretary Tarun Kapoor. "Cabinet approval is expected very soon."

Companies expected to be vying for the $48 million-worth of direct grants include Welspun Group (which is backed by Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC) and Sunborne Energy Holdings LLC – a company of billionaire Vinod Khosla that has alread constructed 1,839 MW of PV capacity since the 2010 launch of the National Solar Mission.

Kapoor revealed that the Ministry hopes to gain approval to disburse the grant money, which is expected to cover as much as 30% of project costs for the winning bids. According to the auction guidelines, developers must propose projects within a 10 MW – 50 MW range, and those that request the least funding will win.

However, if the Cabinet does not approve the auction terms within the next ten days, there may be further delays caused by the forthcoming state assembly elections in New Delhi. Should this happen, bidding could be pushed back to Decemeber at the latest, according to Kapoor.

The auction is typically held approximately 45 days after the bids are invited.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.