India concludes world’s largest renewables-plus-storage tender at $0.0566595/kWh

Pumped hydro and battery projects, coupled with renewables, offer the world’s lowest peak clean electricity tariff. The tender, which received bids for for 1.62 GW of capacity against the 1.2 GW sought, saw Greenko secure 900 MW of pumped storage capacity and Renew Power 300 MW of battery storage.
Domestic project developer Greenko secured 900 MW of the 1.2 GW available. | Image: Adam Jones/Flickr

Thermal power has had its day in India, the head of a national PV trade body has claimed after the Solar Energy Corporation of India concluded what it called the world’s largest renewables-plus-energy-storage capacity tender.

The procurement exercise was held to contract 1.2 GW of capacity in the form of assured supply of 600 MW of clean power for six hours daily during peak demand hours – 5.30-9.30am and 5.30pm-12.30am – on a day-ahead, on-demand basis. The successful bids comprised at least 3 GWh of energy storage capacity – pumped hydro or battery storage – plus associated clean energy generation assets.

For the full story, please visit our pv magazine India site.

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Kanu
Feb 13, 2020

@Max, partly correct.
1. Bidders have to offer power during 24 hours at different flat tariffs (details in response to Fenki)
2. They have to commit to a CUF AND a capacity for this supply.
3. For peaks – Greenko would have to supply 450MW for 6 hours (out of the listed 11)
4. For the rest of the day – they have to calculate and supply an ‘X’ MW so that their commitments on CUF are met (they can exceed their committed CUF of course)

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Mehul Patel
Mar 18, 2020

Dear all, please let me know if you know rough capex for this 900 MW plant and how many units (MW), it will provide 24 hours continuous power supply? Currently all I know is 100 MW Solar PV Plant cost about 44 to 50 millions USD (CAPEX) in India but I want to know the CAPEX for PHES (Pumed Hydro Energy Storage) based PV Plant which guarantees 100 MW of 24 hours continuous power supply to grid. Thanks – Mehul ([email protected])

Max Hall
Feb 13, 2020

Thanks for clearing that up for us Kadu.

Your Monday Briefings: All the Solar News (Week 7)
Feb 10, 2020

[…] The largest renewables + storage tender (1.2 GW) the world has ever seen is now concluded in India, with the average successful bid at $0.0566595/kWh. 900 MW of the project was awarded to Greenko and 300 MW to Renew Power […]

Fenki DeSilva
Feb 06, 2020

“for six hours daily during peak demand hours – 5.30-9.30am and 5.30pm-12.30am”?? can anyone clarify? should it be ‘off-peak’?

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Kanu
Feb 13, 2020

Hey Fenki,

“for six hours daily during peak demand hours – 5.30-9.30am and 5.30pm-12.30am”?? can anyone clarify? should it be ‘off-peak’?”

In India, the demand peaks between 0600-0900 and 1800-2200 hours (give or take a half hour or so). In this tender, the peak hours have been defined as those hours you’ve mentioned and they include the grid peaks we see in India.
The tender is structured with a 2 part tariff. A flat predetermined rate for off peak hours and a price discovered (for the peak hours) via a reverse auction (where the lowest bidder for the per kwh tariff wins)
So, getting to your point – it is correctly mentioned here

Max Hall
Feb 07, 2020

Hi Fenki, I cannot be absolutely certain but, under those tender terms stated I understood it to mean bidders would have to offer six hours per day at any point during those two peak windows.

Amitabh Bora
Feb 05, 2020

VERY Informative.

Engr. Ande Simeon Terfa
Feb 04, 2020

This is awesome

abstract exchange
Feb 03, 2020

900Mw pumped energy storage, and 300Mw battery storage are very fool and against science !
This large scale energy storage must be hydrogen.

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DG
May 25, 2020

if you look at the energy lost on converting electric power to hydrogen and converting it back to electricity, the total losses are far higher than pump storage or battery storage. Hydrogen is there for less green and more “against science” than batteries or pump storage.

That is before you take commercials into account and the difficulty in storing hydrogen. Factor that in and hydrogen costs way more than batteries. And how does hydrogen convert back to electricity to use it? Fuel Cells, a very expensive tech that you don’t need for batteries. Batteries directly give you electricity.

In personal vehicles, this is the reason hydrogen powered cars have not become practical. The existing hydrogen pumps, even after heavy subsidies, end up selling at a price that’s 8 times (or more) expensive per km than premium priced electricity to charge a battery EV. Home charging a battery EV is even cheaper. Now add in the fact that hydrogen fuel cells are way more expensive than batteries, the buying cost of a hydrogen vehicle is also higher than battery EV.

Hammurabi
Feb 10, 2020

I understand that Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp. is currently developing a 2000 MW pumped storage project in India. There are existing pumped storage projects in excess of 3000 MW worldwide, so 900 MW is not unreasonable and certainly not “against science.”

There are several 300+ MW battery storage projects under contract right now and one 100 MW battery operating in Australia. Again, not against science.

Max Hall
Feb 04, 2020

Hi there, Thanks for your comment, could you please explain to our readers why pumped energy storage and battery storage is “against science”