In the e-reverse auction, SunEdison offered a lowest tariff of 4.63 rupees ($0.0706) per kilowatt-hour for the 500MW project, breaking the previous record of SkyPower’s Rs5.05 per kilowatt-hour for a 150MW project in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
NTPC received a total of 30 bids, totaling 5,500MW of solar capacity.
Indian Power Minister Piyush Goyal tweeted: "Delighted that an all time low solar tariff of Rs 4.63 has been achieved during reverse e-auction conducted by NTPC."
Besides SunEdison, bidders included SoftBank Group, Trina Solar, Enel Green Power, Reliance Power, ReNew Power Ventures, Solar Arise, Acme Solar and Orange Renewable Power, among others.
The project involves construction of 10 solar farms, each with 50MW capacity, at Gani-Sakunala Solar Park in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, and under the government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.
The Indian government has set a target to have 100GW of installed solar capacity by 2022 in an effort to reduce dependency on coal to generate electricity and combat climate change. The country currently has 4GW of solar capacity.
In September, SunEdison has signed a memorandum of understanding to develop 2,000MW of renewable energy projects in Tamil Nadu state of India, with an investment of around Rs130bn ($1.9bn).
The deal is a part of the company’s effort to build 15.2GW of clean and cost effective wind and solar power projects in the country by 2022.
Image: India plans to have 100GW of installed solar capacity by 2022. Photo: courtesy of Naypong/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
