SECI Signs off 2021 With 1785 MW Tender Award At Rs 2.17/unit

In a late announcement yesterday, the Solar Energy Corporation of India announced the bid winners of its 1785 MW Solar tender (Tranche IV) for Rajasthan, whose bid deadline was May 21, with a final winning price of Rs 2.17 /unit. The final winners list has a mix of PSU, private and foreign forms in it, with NTPC Renewable Energy  leading with a capacity of 500 MW, Sprng Energy Natural Power Source  taking 200 MW, Calpine Subsico Solar Energy (an SPV of UPC Renewables) 90 MW, and Metka EGN Singapore Pte 20 MW. ReNew Solar Power won 600 MW at Rs 2.18, while ACME Solar, which had bid for the entire tender quantity of 1785 MW at Rs 2.18, finally got an allotment of  375 MW.

Metca EGN is a solar EPC firm from the Green industrial conglomerate, Mytilineos Group, which has been moving to expand aggressively into renewables and sustainable solutions.  The UPC Group, the other new name if of course a global renewables player, based in the US.

The tender results were  a long awaited one, not just for the size of the tender, but also as this tender specifically  enjoined bidders to use cells and modules only from firms listed in the ALMM (approved List of Module Manufacturers) of MNRE. It had also received a very strong response at the time, indicating  strong appetite for projects among developers. To that extent, most experts had predicted prices higher than the final discovered price.  However, key changes, be it Renew’s Listing at NASDAQ, or ACME’s major fund raising drive might have helped drive prices lower. Keep in mind that among bidders missing out are established majors like Tata Power (which had won the Neemuch auction)  which had bid at Rs 2.48, Adani Green at Rs 2.55 or even Azure Power, at Rs 2.66 per unit.

The Rs 2.17 price is also narrowly behind the lowest price discovered this year, the Rs 2.14 winning bids at the 500 MW Neemuch solar park in Madhya Pradesh.

The 2020 record of Rs 2.00 discovered by SECI at the 1070 MW Rajasthan solar auctions thus remains in place, and looks set to remain so through 2022 too finally, considering how prices have stayed stubbornly up and the impending duties that will add tho those pressure from April 2022.

Bid winners will clearly be hoping to see equipment prices stabilise, and possibly even retreat closer to 2020 levels, to protect their margins in this win. Ordering for equipment will probably start only by late 2022, which gives them enough time to hope and pray for the needed shift in direction.