Blogs
Maharashtra lays out a template for agri-solar
15 April 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Maharashtra has allocated a remarkable 9,000 MW agri-solar project capacity across 95 project developers. The state agency, MSEB Solar Agro Power Limited (MSAPL), had issued a flurry of tenders in the last three months for setting up distributed solar capacity in chunks of about 10-15 MW each for injection at individual substation level. There were two different kinds of tenders – for individual projects and for aggregated district level (about 200 MW each) – totaling 5,000 MW and 3,650 MW respectively.
Still searching for a firm power solution
08 April 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
SECI recently completed the first ever auction for a “firm and dispatchable renewable energy” (FDRE) tender. The 1,500 MW tender was undersubscribed with only 600 MW of bids received and 480 MW awarded to JSW (180 MW), Hero (120), Serentica (100) and ReNew (80) at tariffs of INR 5.59-5.60/ kWh…
Lack of traceability hurting the Indian REC market
31 March 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
India’s national power sector regulator, CERC, has made a series of amendments to the REC market framework over the last couple of years. After introduction of bilateral trading, removal of price bands and extending instrument validity forever from December 2022 onwards, it made RECs technology agnostic from October 2023 onwards. Buyers on exchanges can no longer trace RECs…
ALMM chaos
26 March 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
MNRE’s last ALMM order had exempted projects commissioned by March 2024 from ALMM requirement. The government issued an amendment in February providing further relaxation bowing to project developer concerns around insufficient availability of high efficiency domestic modules. The amendment sought to waive the requirement completely for open access projects and for other projects…
BESS cost reduction improving adoption outlook
18 March 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
GUVNL has concluded an auction for a 250 MW/ 500 MWh standalone battery storage tender. The batteries will be deployed at a state transmission sub-station for providing energy arbitrage, load shifting and other applications. Bidders were required to quote a flat capacity charge for providing two operational cycles per day over twelve years. Gensol and Indigrid have won 70 MW and 180 MW capacities with bids of INR 4.48 and 4.49 million/ MW/ month respectively. JSW, Hero, NTPC, ACME, SJVN and EDF were the other bidders with bids ranging…
Project developers facing equity crunch
11 March 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
India’s buoyant public equity market is eagerly lapping up renewable energy stocks. Alpex Solar, a relatively small module manufacturer with total capacity of only 450 MW per annum, completed an INR 744 million (USD 9 million) IPO in February 2024 with over 300x response to its issue. The stock is now trading at a stupendous 3x offer price and over 200x annual earnings. IREDA’s INR 6.4 billion (USD 77 million) IPO in November 2023 was oversubscribed by 39x and the stock now trades at 4.6x its offer…
DISCOMs scramble for green attributes
05 March 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Gujarat has opened a new front against open access projects. As per the recently issued tariff framework guidelines for solar-wind hybrid projects, if such projects want to bank power with the grid, they would need to forego all green attributes in favour of the DISCOMs. The provision is expected to be extended to standalone solar and wind projects in the near future…
Module PLI scheme to fall well short of target
26 February 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
First Solar has become the first company, awarded capacity in the module manufacturing PLI scheme, to announce full commercial operations ahead of time. The company’s 3.3 GW integrated thin-film module manufacturing plant commenced production in January 2024. It has already tied up bulk of its first year…
Financially strong wind OEMs a positive for the sector
19 February 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Suzlon and Inox Wind, the two biggest Indian wind turbine manufacturers, have announced much improved financial results for Q4 2023. Suzlon reported revenues of INR 43 billion in 9M FY 2024 largely in line with the previous year but EBITDA was up to INR 6.8 billion from INR 6.1 billion, while PAT witnessed 43x growth YOY to INR 4.3 billion…
Surge in auctions hard to sustain
12 February 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
There has been a surge in project auctions in the last three months. Since November 2023, total capacity of 12,142 MW has been awarded under 13 auctions. Notable auctions include a 1,184 MW peak power award by SJVN, 3,000 MW solar power by NHPC, 750 MW RTC power by REMCL, and three solar-wind hybrid awards by SECI (900 MW), NTPC (1,104) and GUVNL (200)….
Government throwing it all at residential rooftop solar
05 February 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government has unveiled a highly ambitious new scheme with a target of installing 10 million residential rooftop solar systems. Few details are available yet, but the government seems to be planning to develop these systems in RESCO mode with the help of DISCOMs (demand aggregation) and central PSUs like NTPC, NHPC, EESL, SECI and SJVN (execution). The scheme is likely to be earmarked for smaller consumers with a maximum installation size of 3 kW and enhanced capital subsidy of up to 60%. ..
Encouraging progress on green hydrogen
29 January 2024 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
SECI has announced winners for the first subsidy scheme for green hydrogen production. Ten companies have been awarded a total subsidy of INR 31 billion (USD 373 million) for aggregate capacity of 412,000 MT per annum against total budget of INR 54 billion (USD 659 million) for 450,000 MT capacity.
