In a recent petition, the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Regulator Commission (UPERC) was requested to adopt tariffs for 550 MW of solar projects and accept the slight delay in signing of the requisite power purchase agreements (PPAs).

The petition was filed by Uttar Pradesh New and Renewable Energy Agency (UPNEDA), Uttar Pradesh Power Company Limited (UPPCL), and Noida Power Company. The project was allotted through an auction conducted by UPNEDA in December 2018. Further, the petitioners also requested the UPERC to accept the delay in the singing of PPAs for these projects and approve them.

According to the petitioners, the signing of power purchase agreements, which happened in February 2019, was well within the timelines stipulated in tender documents and they had received a certificate of conformity from the bid evaluation committee.

After going through the submission of the petitioners, the commission found that even though there was a delay in PPA signing with developers, the bidding process and PPA signing took place within a stipulated timeline of 150 days as mentioned in the tender documents. Therefore, the delay was accepted by the commission.

The UPERC also accepted that the projects were awarded through a transparent bidding mechanism and adopted the proposed tariffs. The tariffs ranged between a low of ₹3.02 (~$0.042)/kWh and a high of ₹3.08 (~$0.044)/kWh.

The commission noted that SECI had estimated the net impact of approximately +₹0.62 ($0.008)/kWh solar tariffs in Uttar Pradesh, factoring in conditions prevailing in states like lower solar irradiations as compared to other states like Rajasthan, higher land cost, lesser land availability, majority of substations being of smaller capacity thereby evacuation of power from smaller capacity projects,  no objection certificates under Land Ceiling Act taking longer time and low bankability of PPAs due to poor rating of DISCOMs. Therefore, as compared to other lowest tariffs obtained in the country, SECI had stated that the realistic tariff for the state would be ₹3.06-3.10 (~$0.043-44)/kWh.

In December 2018, Mercom reported that National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) emerged as the lowest bidder in the auction conducted by the UPNEDA for 550 MW of grid-connected solar projects.

In this auction, NTPC quoted a tariff of ₹3.02 (~$0.0431)/kWh to develop 85 MW of grid-connected solar PV projects, EDF (Bastille Solar) quoted a tariff of ₹3.04 (~$0.0434)/kWh to develop 70 MW of solar, and it also quoted a tariff of ₹3.07 (~$0.0439)/kWh to develop another 70 MW.

Avaada (Giriraj Renewables) quoted ₹3.07 (~$0.0439)/kWh to develop 100 MW, Jakson Power bid ₹3.07 (~$0.0439)/kWh to develop 50, Adani (Mahoba Solar) bid ₹3.07 (~$0.0439)/kWh to develop 50 MW, Tata Power Renewable Energy Limited (TPREL) quoted ₹3.07 (~$0.0439)/kWh to develop 50 MW and ₹3.08 (~$0.0440)/kWh to develop another 50 MW.

Recently, the UPERC also approved and amended PPAs for 500 MW of solar projects.