Bids open for 21,000 MW of renewable energy projects in 45 days

If everything goes well, India will see bids opening for 21,000 MW of wind, solar and hybrid power projects in the 45 days beginning today. But it is a big ‘if’, because in the pandemic-hit economy, several bid opening and project awards have suffered postponement.

Auctioning capacity is an ongoing project. Tenders are issued frequently by both the Central government (mostly through its company, SECI), State governments and government-owned companies. However, the bid opening dates of six auctions of SECI happen to fall between today and August 5, involving a capacity of 20,900 MW.

These are, of course, only the large capacity auctions. If you take into account smaller projects, such as 10 MW in the Jaipur district and 15 MW floating solar project in Telangana, as well as a few other auctions by State governments or public sector undertakings, such as the 400 MW tender of Railway Energy Management Company Ltd, the total capacity under the hammer would be much more.

Bids are due to open today against auctions of 2,000 MW of solar power projects.

The biggest of these is the 7,500-MW solar project in Leh and Kargil districts, bids for which are scheduled to be opened on August 5. And on July 8, the bids for a chunky 5,000 MW auction for ‘round-the-clock’ power will be opened.

However, industry insiders, such as Sunil Jain, CEO and Executive Director of the wind and solar Hero Future Energies, are not too sanguine about the project awards.

In the recent past, the bid deadline for many tenders have been extended. For example, the deadline for bid submission for the 700-MW Dholera park project in Gujarat was May 30, but has been extended till July 31.

And in Leh, it is feared the response to the tender would be lukewarm because there are as yet no transmission lines to evacuate the power – even though the idea of setting up solar power projects in Leh has been talked about for five years.

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