Indian utility National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has issued another tender for 400MW of solar projects to be located in the Indian state of Telangana.
The two requests for selection, which will go through a reverse bidding process, come under India’s National Solar Mission, the country's flagship programme for deploying solar capacity.
The first tender is for 350MW of capacity, made up of ten 35MW projects in the open category. The second is for 50MW made up of ten 5MW projects to come under Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) rules, which require the project developer to use locally produced cells and modules.
It should be noted that in August, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled against India in a long-running dispute instigated by the US over the inclusion of the DCR in its India's national solar programme, however, the ruling has yet to be enforced.
Having procured the power from the private developers, NTPC plans to bundle 2MWh of solar power with 1MWh of thermal power.
In August, NTPC announced plans to build 15GW of solar projects, which will be made more competitive by bundling the electricity produced together with electricity from some of India’s oldest coal-fired power plants.
Jasmeet Khurana, senior consulting manager at analyst firm Bridge to India, told PV Tech: “India now has a healthy pipeline of new allocations and is on its way to become a 5-10GW a year market in the next couple of years. This will provide significant opportunities to new developers as well as help existing developers ramp up their asset portfolios.”
He added that the tally of open tenders in India has now reached 5,120MW.
India targets 100GW of solar capacity by 2022 and recently submitted its INDC aiming to have 40% of its energy mix coming from alternative sources by 2030
Original Post: PV Tech
