Blogs
States to revamp solar targets in line with the country’s 100 GW target
22 February 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The MNRE has asked all states to revise their solar policy targets (refer) to make them consistent with the revised Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) target of 8% by 2022, as notified under the revised Tariff Policy published in the Gazette of India on 28th January 2016. States...
Scrap Dollar based bidding for solar projects
18 February 2016 | Mudit Jain
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been keen to introduce Dollar denominated bidding for solar projects. The rationale is to eliminate currency risk for international developers and manage this on aggregate basis thereby reducing the solar tariffs. When the concept was first mooted in the second quarter of 2015, the solar tariffs in India were in the range of INR 6.00 –...
No major surprises likely in the budget
15 February 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Indian government is expected to table the budget for 2016-17 on 29th February 2016. Due to severe constraints on the government’s fiscal position, room for new expenditure including spending on solar sector seems limited. Intelligent use of the available fiscal resources should be the focus for the sector. The budget is likely to approve funding for already announced schemes and higher...
SECI is re-opening 50 MW tender in Maharashtra for bidding – has the tariff revision dampened investor’s interest?
08 February 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Bids were submitted last month for a 500 MW tender under the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) scheme to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). In this tender, 50 MW was reserved for Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) category and remaining 450 MW was for open category. However, the bidder interest in this tender was highly subdued as compared to other recent tenders (
India may remove domestic procurement requirement for private solar allocations
01 February 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
In August 2015, World Trade Organization (WTO) declared that it was illegal for India to impose ‘Domestic Content Requirement’ (DCR) obligation for solar cells and modules. India had appealed against this ruling and continues to allocate projects under the DCR category. However, India has now offered a compromise to the US by removing DCR requirements for private sector projects only (the...
New tariff policy can be a significant reform for the power and renewable sector
25 January 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved amendments to the National Tariff Policy 2005 (refer). While the policy document has not yet been released, the draft version issued by the Ministry of Power in April 2015 is available (
Subdued bid interest for SECI’s 500 MW tender in Maharashtra
18 January 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Earlier this month, bids were submitted to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for 500 MW of solar PV projects in Maharashtra under Viability Gap Funding (VGF) mechanism. Out of the total capacity under this tender, 50 MW of projects are reserved for modules meeting domestic content requirement (DCR). Key highlights of this tender are – minimum project size of 10 MW, no maximum limit,...
India adds 2 GW of utility scale solar capacity in 2015; to install 4.8 GW in 2016
11 January 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
BRIDGE TO INDIA research shows that utility scale solar projects totaling up to 4.8 GW of capacity will be commissioned in the calendar year 2016, a growth of 140% over capacity commissioned in 2015. Contrary to popular perception, new capacity addition in 2016 will be driven largely by state level allocations. Delays in new allocations by NTPC and SECI mean that most of the recently allocated...
Deployment Or Innovation — Which Road To A Low-Carbon Future?
05 January 2016 | Tobias Engelmeier
At the “Energy for Tomorrow” conference in Paris, last week, one of the core discussions in the energy industry was: is a low-carbon world a challenge of deployment or one of innovation? In other words: do we already have the technologies we need (e.g. solar, wind, grid management) and now just need to focus on deploying them? This could be called the evolutionary approach. There will, of...
The Government of India launches an ambitious rooftop solar subsidy scheme
04 January 2016 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) sanctioned INR 50 billion (USD 750 million) funding for 30% capital subsidy for rooftop solar installations (refer). The subsidy will be restricted to residential, government, social and institutional segments only and the government expects this...
CERC benchmark solar PV capital costs fall by more than 25% in 2 years
28 December 2015 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) passed an order for determination of benchmark capital cost for solar PV projects for the financial year 2016-17 (refer). The order estimates capital cost including cost of equipment, construction, land, transmission and pre-operative expenses...
It is raining solar auctions in India, but high competition persists
21 December 2015 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, three e-auctions of solar projects were completed by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). Our summary observations are as below: Competition continues to be intense with Softbank-Bharti group JV winning 350 MW in Andhra Pradesh at a price of INR 4.63/kWh. Interestingly, despite winning the previous allocation of 500 MW at INR 4.63/kWh, SunEdison didn’t qualify for the...
