Delhi to produce 2,000 MW solar power by 2025: SatyendraJain

www.aws-india.co.in 

Original Post : Times Of India

"Our target would be 30-40 MW in the 1st year, 100 MW in the 2nd year, then 200 MW in the next year followed by 400 MW and so on" Satyendra Jain said.

NEW DELHI: Delhi Power minister Satyendra Jain on Thursday said that the state will produce 2,000 MW electricity by 2025 through solar power generation.

"We want to achieve 1,000 MW target in next 4-5 years' time and we aim to generate 2000 MW electricity by the year 2025 in a phased manner," Jain said while inaugurating a conference on 'Solar Power: 1,00,000 MW @2022 - Accelerating Deployment', organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

"Our target would be 30-40 MW in the 1st year, 100 MW in the 2nd year, then 200 MW in the next year followed by 400 MW and so on."

Stressing upon the need for innovation and new inventions in solar power generation, the minister said: "We aim to fast-tracking solar power projects in Delhi by about 20 per cent. Solar panels could be installed at railway platforms, metro stations, bus stops etc."

Terming financing of solar power generation as a challenge, he suggested the financial institutions to introduce "solar power mutual funds", and luring the investors by providing assured units of power at a fixed rate.

A status check on Dollar dominated bidsfor solar projects in India

Original Post: BRIDGE TO INDIA 

India has been discussing dollar dominated bids for solar projects in the country for some time now. The rationale is to attract low cost international capital and reduce hedging costs by pooling currency risk with the ultimate objective of reducing the cost of solar power. An initial allocation for 1 GW of projects is believed to be in planning stages and guidelines on bidding process are expected within the next couple of months.

• The government hopes to lower the cost of solar power by around 10%
• BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis shows that cost reduction may be slightly less at about 5% but these projects may attract new capital to the sector
• It is worth going through the added complexity of Dollar dominated bids only if the government is confident of using this mechanism for much larger capacity, say 10 GW or more

Under this structure, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) hopes to buy solar power at a fixed tariff of about USD 5.6 cents/kWh (INR 3.6/kWh) using auction process and sell to distribution companies (DISCOMs) at around INR 5/kWh, about 10% lower than current cost. This leaves INR 1.40/kWh to cover hedging risk.

BRIDGE TO INDIA analysis shows that this is a sensible move as there is already very strong demand from international investors for Indian solar projects. But the actual tariffs realized under Dollar denominated bids will likely be less than 10% because procuring currency hedging for 25 years is not possible and it is not clear who will maintain this hedging corpus and bear the residual risk. This unhedged risk, which increases with time, is very difficult to quantify and will result in higher hedging cost.

It is important to highlight that the Dollar tariffs will remove exchange rate risk for developers and investors, but they will still bear all other India project development risk including offtake, dispatch, policy and other operational risks. Hence, developers expecting 10-11% return on projects in the USA, for example, will still expect a return premium for Indian projects to compensate for extra risks. And will the international lenders who anyway do not take any currency risk see these projects differently? The government should finesse the structure after thorough consultation with developers and lenders, distribution companies and NTPC, which is expected to be the project procurement agency. It might take another 6-8 months before all the kinks are ironed out and India actually moves forward with the first round of dollar dominated bids.

It is worth going through the added complexity of Dollar dominated bids only if the government feels confident of using this mechanism for much larger capacity, say 10 GW or more. The clear objective should be to attract large international developers for larger projects and reduce project procurement time and costs in addition to hedging costs.

Connect with us on Facebook

India’s ‘absolutely power neutral’ airport to inaugurate 12MWp PV project       

Original Post By Andy Colthorpe 

•  
  Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Airport has 19MW of PV, spread across ground mount, rooftop and carports. Image: SunEdison.
•  
  Kansai Airpot's 11.6MW solar power plant, Japan. Image: Solar Frontier.

An airport in the Indian state of Kerala will become “absolutely power neutral” when it inaugurates a 12MWp solar power plant onsite next week.

Cochin International Airport will unveil its green initiative on 18 August with Kerala’s chief minister, Ooomman Chandy, in attendance, according to local reports.

The commissioning of the PV plant is the third and biggest move so far in this direction by the airport, which installed a 100kWp rooftop plant in 2013 and another shortly after that with 1MWp capacity. According to the airport this was the first megawatt-scale solar PV plant in Kerala.

The latest move adds 45 acres of ground-mounted array, using 265Wp modules by Chinese manufacturer ReneSola and 1MW inverters by ABB India. The project was executed by German engineering company Bosch.

Cochin International Airport’s press release said that the array, when combined with the existing 1.1MW of installed capacity will “technically” make the airport “’absolutely power neutral’”, meaning the PV plants will produce as much electricity as the entire facility demands.  

Other significant airport PV installations in Asia include an 11.6MW PV plant at Kansai Airport in Japan, commissioned in March 2014 and a 19MW plant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

to see more such posts please connect with us on our face Book Page

Connect with Us