Hyderabad: Ahead of a scheduled pre-bid meeting for the development of 2,000 mw of solar power in Telangana, the state officials assured the private developers that the government would provide all the support including the available land to facilitate these projects.
Speaking at a two-day ‘EQ Solar Leadership Summit’ on Wednesday, Telangana state industrial infrastructure corporation (TSIIC) managing director Jayesh Ranjan said the government has been holding the brain-storming sessions on ways to facilitate the development of solar projects by taking care of land and evacuation issues.
Earlier this month the state government has notified the bidding schedule beginning with the filing of request for selection (RFS) by the prospective developers to award projects with an aggregate capacity of around 2,000 mw through tariff-based competitive bidding process.
The government will enter into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the successful bidders for the procurement of solar power for a period of 25 years. Having 300 sunshine days in a year with average insolation of 5.0 kWh/m2 the state would offer a short gestation period for the solar power projects, according to the government.
While May, 15 is set as the deadline for submission of bids by the private developers, the successful bidders would be issued letters of intent (LoI) on June 22 and finally sign the power purchase agreements(PPAs) on July 21, 2015.
The government has set an upper ceiling for the procurement tariff at Rs 6.45 per unit for group 1 bids which would inject power at 33/11 kv substation level and at Rs 6.32 per unit for the projects that are connected to the grid at 133/33 kv and above voltage levels.
Rolta Power associate director Bhupesh Trivedi said the investors have enough funds to develop the solar projects though the practical problems such as land and other issues have been holding them back from aggressively pursuing the solar power projects.
He also suggested to the government that it should provide room for more number of small size projects with 3 mw capacity unlike in the earlier bidding process conducted for an aggregate capacity of 500 mw in which 70-80% projects had gone to big size players, according to him.
Indian solar association chairman C Narasimhan requested the state government to create a land bank for solar power projects as the availability of land has been the biggest problem coming in way of solar power development across the country.
The state power utilities are holding a pre-bid meeting on Friday with the prospective developers to clarify on various issues and motivate them to participate in the competitive bidding process.
