The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) had floated a tender for procurement of 500 MW of solar power and it had received bids for a total of 300 MW from 22 developers(earlier post here). The price bids were opened yesterday, and The Hindu newspaper(read here) has reported that the lowest bid is Rs. 4.40/kWh as against its benchmark tariff of Rs. 4.50/kWh. This tariff is about Rs. 1.2/kWh higher than the Rewa winning bid of Rs. 3.29/kWh(levelised), since the Tamil Nadu tender is not for projects in Solar parks, nor does it offer deemed generation or payment security mechanism. The problem of curtailment and late payment is fairly acute in Tamil Nadu.
You can now compare the tariffs for each of these tenders with the historical price bids here. You also see how the capital costs(CERC benchmark costs) have fallen over the years here.
Moving on to other news, earlier this month, MNRE had released the PV manufacturing(cell and module) capacity in India(read the original blog here). As per that list, Adani Group had the highest manufacturing capacity in India, but the plant is not yet operational. Keeping this in mind, the MNRE released an updated list of PV manufacturing capacity, and the same can be accessed here.
On the deals side, the Unicorn(a term used for any startup that is valued at more than US $1 Billion) in the renewable energy space, ReNew Power, has raised $200 million from JERA at a valuation of $2 Billion. This comes ahead of ReNew Power’s proposed Initial Public Offering(IPO).(A very relevant trivia about the Unicorn ReNew Power – unlike most other Indian Unicorns like Flipkart, Ola, Snapdeal and others which are losing money heavily, ReNew Power claims to be profitable. Read more here in this Forbes profile).
The other financing announcement came from IFC, when it announced last week that it is planning to invest up to $15 million in compulsorily convertible debentures in Clean Max Equity.
On the technology side, one of the key issues that a PV system designer confronts is the DC/AC oversizing. With the decrease in module prices, how does one optimize a design with a high DC load ratio while balancing the clipping losses? ABB along with GTM is organizing a Free Webinar titled “Oversizing the PV System to the Inverter Ratio” on March 2, 2017. You can register for the event here.
Have a nice Sunday and a great week ahead.
(This blog series is supported by Aspiration Cleantech Ventures)
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