NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd, the nodal agency
under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission,
is expected to issue letters of intent to seven
private developers for building solar power capacity
aggregating 497 mw. While the intent letters will be
issued by end of December, the developers are
expected to sign the power purchase agreements by
February 2011. The projects, with aggregate investment
of
7,000 crore, will have to be commissioned
within two years of signing the PPA.
The seven developers, all of
whom will develop plants using
the concentrated solar power
(CSP) technology, are Reliance
Power, Lanco, KVK Energy, Megha
Engineering & Infrastructures,
Godavari Power, Corporate Ispat
and Arum Renewables. Out of the
total envisaged capacity, 429 mw is
scheduled to come up in Rajasthan
and 50 mw in Andhra Pradesh.
Feed-in tariffs: Central Electricity
Regulatory Commission has
determined feed-in tariff for CSP plants at
15.31 per
kwh, compared with
17.91 per kwh for solar photovoltaic
power plants. The discount offered by a
potential bidder to the CERC tariff is vital
for evaluation of bids for allocation of projects
under JNNSM. Lanco has offered the
highest discount of
4.82 per kwh, followed
by KVK Energy at
4.11 per kwh (see
table). It is reliably learnt that 64 companies
had participated in the bidding process, and
based on the discounts offered and other eligibility
criteria, NVVN selected the aforementioned seven.
JNNSM envisages 20,000 mw grid-connected
solar power generation capacity by 2022. The programme
is to be implemented in three phases. The
first phase envisages 1,000 mw, equally distributed
in CSP and solar PV, by 2013.