States must not leave investors in the lurch: Reneging on PPAs/reauctioning will hurt capital invested in renewables

With tariffs having come down sharply to levels of around Rs 2-2.25 per unit, and in some instances, below Rs 2 per unit, a clutch of states has either refused to buy solar power or has reneged on the power purchase agreements (PPA). First, it was the Andhra Pradesh government that demanded tariffs in the PPAs for 5.2GW of wind- and solar-power capacity be revised downwards. Subsequently, the Uttar Pradesh government stopped procuring electricity from 650 MW of wind power plants, claiming the Rs 3.46-per-unit PPA-tariff had not been approved by CERC. Last August, Gujarat had auctioned 700MW of solar capacity to be built in Dholera for which a tariff of Rs 2.78 per unit had been discovered.