Avaada Energy, O2 Power Win RUMSL 550 MW Solar Auction

We have two more names joining the winners’ list in key solar auction results this week. This time, it is the RUMSL 550 MW Agar Solar park auction, where Avaada Energy and O2 Power (through Beempow energy Private Limited) have won the auction for 550 MW solar projects of Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited (RUMSL), RUMSL, a Joint Venture Company of Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (MPUVN), and Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has been instrumental on putting Madhya Pradesh on the solar map of the country with its conduct of the state’s solar projects trajectory.

Project Details

This particular project capacity comprises two units, Agar (Unit 1) and Susner (unit 2) with 200 MW and 350 MW of capacities, respectively. While Avaada Energy won 200 MW with a bid of Rs 2.459 paise per unit, O2 Power won 350MW capacity with its successful bid of  Rs. 2.444/kWh, respectively.

The auction had received a huge response with a total of 18 bidders shortlisted for the tender, together with adding up to almost 3.5GW of bids for the offered capacity. 

Domestic Sourcing And Pricing

Like most projects since April 1, 2021, these projects too have to comply with the MNRE order on sticking to domestically approved suppliers for equipment,  with a minimum of 50 percent domestic components. That means winners have factored in the BCD of 40 percent on modules and 25% on cells in their workings. That effectively means that we might be settling in to see pricing in the range of Rs 2.40 to Rs 2.65 per unit from here on, considering the initial trends in the results over the past few days for tenders over 1500 MW now.

RUMSL Advantage

For RUMSL, the new winners will speed up the process to catch up with its targets, after delays caused due to the Covid pandemic. With issues like land acquisition taken care of at RUMSL tenders and the solid track record of the firm on payments, it has enabled it to get very good offers till now for its projects being developed under MNRE’s Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Power Projects (UMREPP) scheme.

The firm has over 3 GW of solar projects in the pipeline, including a 600 MW floating solar plan for Omkareshwar dam in the state’s Khandwa district.