The Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited’s (MSEDCL) tender to procure 500 MW of wind-solar hybrid power has received a good response from the bidders. It has been oversubscribed by 1 GW, according to Mercom sources.

The bidders’ list includes Azure Power, O2 Power, Tata Power, JSW Energy, and ReNew Power.

The state distribution company (DISCOM) had floated the tender last month to procure 500 MW of wind-solar hybrid power on a long-term basis from grid-connected interstate and intrastate projects.

MSEDCL will enter into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the selected bidders to purchase wind-solar hybrid power for 25 years from the commercial operation date of the projects.

The minimum project size of a single hybrid project for the intrastate projects should be 25 MW, with at least 10 MW project at one site. For the intrastate projects, it should be 50 MW at one site to be interconnected to a single delivery point.

Also, the interstate or intrastate projects already commissioned but lacking any long-term PPA with any agency will be considered if these projects are not already accepted under any other central or state programs and do not have any obligations towards existing buyers.

Commenting on the response from the bidders, an MSEDCL official said, “The total bids received is for about 1.5 GW, and if we compare it with the response to the recent solar tender, it is slightly less. Being a hybrid tender, MSEDCL had the clause of certified wind turbine procurement from the revised list of models and manufacturers and procurement of solar modules from the approved list of models and manufacturers. Therefore, only a few big players were eligible to bid for this capacity in compliance with both the clauses. Also, due to lower earnest money deposit and the performance bank guarantee compared to the hybrid tender, more bidders were attracted towards the solar tender rather than the hybrid tender.”

MSEDCL’s 500 MW solar tender floated last month received a strong response from the bidders and was oversubscribed by more than 3.5 GW.

In the previous major hybrid auction held in December last year, three companies had won the 1.2 GW of solar-wind hybrid projects quoting a tariff of ₹2.41 (~$0.0326)/kWh – the lowest-ever for hybrid projects. The tariff was discovered in the Solar Energy Corporation of India’s auction for setting up 1.2 GW of the interstate transmission system (ISTS)-connected wind-solar hybrid projects under Tranche III of the ISTS program.

ABC Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of Axis Energy, was awarded 380 MW of projects, Adani Renewable Energy Holding Eight Limited was awarded 600 MW, and AMP Energy was awarded 130 MW for ₹2.41 (0.0326)/kWh. ACME Solar had quoted ₹2.42 (~$0.0327)/kWh for 300 MW of projects but was only awarded 90 MW under the bucket-filling method.

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