At Lowest Bid Of Rs 3.15, Three Picked For SECI's Hybrid Tender

With Lowest Bid Of Rs 3.15, Only Three Winners For SECI 2000 MW Tranche VII Hybrid Tender

By Saur News Bureau/ Updated On Wed, Jan 10th, 2024

Highlights :

While Sembcorp walked away with the highest allotment at 450 MW, NTPC Renewable made the lowest bid of Rs 3.15/kWh.

With Lowest Bid Of Rs 3.15, Only Three Winners For SECI 2000 MW Tranche VII Hybrid Tender

NTPC Renewable Energy, Juniper Green Energy and Sembcorp emerged as the only three bidders acceptable to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for the 2000 MW ISTS connected Hybrid projects. With bids received for only 1265 MW, SECI had reduced available capacity to 1012 MW at 80% of aggregate bid capacity. The results for the Hybrid tender are on expected lines, with rates not expected to breach the Rs 3.40 level for the near future as well.

NTPC Renewable Energy was allotted 300 MW at Rs 3.15/unit, while Jupiter Green Energy walked away with 150 MW at Rs 3.21, with Sembcorp (Green Infra Renewable Energy) winning the largest allocation of 450 MW at Rs 3.21 as well.

Announced in October last year, the tender has been dogged with issues, especially the poor aggregate response. Developers including Avaada and Sprng Energy that failed to make the cut had quoted prices at Rs 3.37/kWh and Rs 3.55/kWh.

The tender specifies that the rated installed capacity of each component, solar or wind, has to be at least 33%, with overall annual CUF to stay above 30% through the life of the 25 year PPA.

Tender results in recent weeks have seemed to favour better margins for developers, riding on lower module prices and a wider acceptance of process in the range of Rs 2.50/kWh by states. However, prices going beyond Rs 3.20 or approaching Rs 3.50 seem to be facing challenges even today, which will worry many industry watchers looking for a sharp pick up not just in tendering but actual project groundbreakings.