The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has received a good response for its 7 GW solar tender that has been linked with a manufacturing component.

After a slew of underperforming solar tenders in the past, this solar tender has been oversubscribed by 1,000 MW. In this auction, Adani Green Energy submitted bid for 4 GW of solar projects, and 1 GW of manufacturing component, followed by Azure and Navyug which submitted bids for 2 GW of projects each. The two also submitted bids for 500 MW of manufacturing units each.

The tariff-based reverse auction is likely to be held by SECI in the coming weeks.

This SECI tender linked with a manufacturing component was one of its kind in India and over the past few months, the tender has faced many obstacles, twists, turns and multiple deadline extensions. The latest date of bid submission was November 13, 2019.

A few days ago, the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) announced that it would provide term loans to solar manufacturing projects. In a letter to SECI, Praveen Kumar, the chairman of IREDA, had expressed the agency’s interest in examining any such proposal from a qualified SECI bidder, which would be subject to meeting IREDA’s eligibility criteria.

Meanwhile, the SECI amended various clauses of this tender to make it appealing for the interested developers.

Talking to Mercom, a senior official at a leading renewable developer told Mercom, “The ceiling tariff of ₹2.93 ($0.041) was one of the main reasons for the good response this tender has received.”

SECI had earlier set the maximum tariff payable to the solar developer at ₹2.75 ($0.039)/ kWh.

“Besides this, various other amendments in the tender by SECI like the ISTS waiver have worked out well in receiving a good response,” he added.

The solar PV power projects set up under this Request for Selection (RfS) would be eligible for ISTS charges waiver, even if commissioned beyond March 31, 2022.

Earlier this year, SECI had revamped and reissued the manufacturing linked solar tender which it had initially floated in January 2019.

Image credit: RWE