Solar power: India
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Companies that have the documents in place have started working on the project. "The meeting with the Tangedco chairman and other members was a manner of assurance of support and we have started progress on our project. The team is on the site and we are in talks with banks for financing," said T R Kishor Nair, President, Welspun Energy, which is setting up a 60 MW plant in Trichy district. Solar policies in other states haven't made as much progress and capacities also aren't as large as in Tamil Nadu. While Andhra Pradesh has a target of 1,000 MW, tariff is a deterrent for investors as it is fixed at Rs 6.49 with no annual hike. The programmes in states like Punjab (300 MW) and Karnataka (130 MW) are on a smaller scale and are in the nascent stage. What adds to Tamil Nadu's attractiveness is that the state has high solar radiation of 5.6 - 6.0 kWh per square meter with around 300 clear sunny days in a year, the third highest in India. | Companies that have the documents in place have started working on the project. "The meeting with the Tangedco chairman and other members was a manner of assurance of support and we have started progress on our project. The team is on the site and we are in talks with banks for financing," said T R Kishor Nair, President, Welspun Energy, which is setting up a 60 MW plant in Trichy district. Solar policies in other states haven't made as much progress and capacities also aren't as large as in Tamil Nadu. While Andhra Pradesh has a target of 1,000 MW, tariff is a deterrent for investors as it is fixed at Rs 6.49 with no annual hike. The programmes in states like Punjab (300 MW) and Karnataka (130 MW) are on a smaller scale and are in the nascent stage. What adds to Tamil Nadu's attractiveness is that the state has high solar radiation of 5.6 - 6.0 kWh per square meter with around 300 clear sunny days in a year, the third highest in India. | ||
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| + | ==2015, state-wise capacity== | ||
| + | See graphic | ||
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| + | [[File: State-wise solar power installed capacity in India, 2015.jpg|State-wise solar power installed capacity in India, 2015; [http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Gallery.aspx?id=17_03_2017_002_013_002&type=P&artUrl=Energy-cost-of-a-smartphone-17032017002013&eid=31808 The Times of India], March 17, 2017|frame|500px]] | ||
=Solar power market= | =Solar power market= | ||
Revision as of 21:14, 11 April 2017
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly
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Contents |
India's solar power capacity
2013: TN leads
Tamil Nadu takes India's solar power capacity up 30%
Sushma U N, TNN | Sep 17, 2013
Tamil Nadu takes India's solar power capacity up 30%
India has 1,759.43MW of grid-connected solar power, with close to 800MW coming from Gujarat. The projects are expected to be ready for commissioning next year.
CHENNAI: India's installed solar power capacity is poised to jump 30% with the Tamil Nadu government close to signing power purchase agreements for 700 megawatts (MW) by the end of October.
Once the plants are up and running, Tamil Nadu will have the second largest solar power capacity in India after Gujarat, the pioneer in such projects in the country.
India has 1,759.43MW of grid-connected solar power, with close to 800MW coming from Gujarat. The projects are expected to be ready for commissioning next year.
As part of TN's solar power policy, which aims at installing 3,000MW of capacity by 2015, a total of 52 companies will sign agreements with the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) for capacity totalling 698MW at a tariff of 6.48 per unit (with a 5% increase annually for 10 years).
This comes at a time when the country's national solar policy is tottering. The second phase of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) has been delayed by over five months with no sign of the programme being kick-started any time soon.
Solar power is the most expensive form of renewable energy and rupee depreciation has added to the woes of companies importing high-end photo voltaic panels.
"There has been a lot of uncertainty over solar power companies and negativity had set in. But now there are projects in the pipeline and activity for players across the board will go up," said Madhavan Nampoothiri, founder and director of RESolve Energy Consultants, an energy consultancy firm.
In 2013 Tangedco held individual meetings with solar power developers asking them to submit documents for proof of land ownership and bank guarantees for financing. "Thirty companies are yet to submit the documents and we have given time till October 30. Once this is in place, power purchase agreements will be signed," a senior official from Tangedco said.
Companies that have the documents in place have started working on the project. "The meeting with the Tangedco chairman and other members was a manner of assurance of support and we have started progress on our project. The team is on the site and we are in talks with banks for financing," said T R Kishor Nair, President, Welspun Energy, which is setting up a 60 MW plant in Trichy district. Solar policies in other states haven't made as much progress and capacities also aren't as large as in Tamil Nadu. While Andhra Pradesh has a target of 1,000 MW, tariff is a deterrent for investors as it is fixed at Rs 6.49 with no annual hike. The programmes in states like Punjab (300 MW) and Karnataka (130 MW) are on a smaller scale and are in the nascent stage. What adds to Tamil Nadu's attractiveness is that the state has high solar radiation of 5.6 - 6.0 kWh per square meter with around 300 clear sunny days in a year, the third highest in India.
2015, state-wise capacity
See graphic
Solar power market
2015-16: large corporates dominate
The Times of India, Sep 09 2016
Sanjay Dutta
Solar power market: Little room for small players under the sun India's fragmented solar power market is gradually witnessing a build-up of domination by private equity-backed large corporates, with the Adani group putting the largest number of projects in the pipeline and Tata Power leading in rooftop installation. The shift is indicated by the fact that the top 20 developers account for almost 80% of projects under development.But they account for only 58% of the 8.1GW (Giga Watt) capacity already installed, while the rest is spread among 500 other companies, says a report by global green energy market tracker Mercom Capital.
The government has set a target of installing 175 GW solar power capacity by 2022 as part of its overall climate management plan. This is one of the factors encouraging big corporates, which have leveraging capacity to raise cheaper funds, to enter the arena. “In a tough market driven hyper-competitive rever by hyper-competitive reverse auctions and low margins, large conglomerates with deep pockets and strong balance sheets that can access financing at much lower rates, private equity-backed firms, and international companies with access to cheaper funding abroad are well-positio ned to dominate the sector.Other than one-off projects, smaller developers will struggle to grow as financing, low bids, and the policy push towards larger projects will make growth challenging,“ the report says.
Adani has put projects with a total capacity of 2 GW in the pipeline to capture 11% of the market within two years of entering the sector. ReNew Power, a wind and solar company backed by Goldman Sachs, is right behind with a 10% market share. The remaining pecking order is made up of SunEdison, which is slated for acquisition, with 8.5% market share, ACME 8%, Azure Power 5%, Tata Power 3.8%, Suzlon and Hero Future Energies with 3.7% of the market.
As far as installed capacity goes, Tata Power leads by notching up a 9% share by acquiring Welspun's project portfolio. ACME follows with 7% share, SunEdison 5.5% and Adani 5%.
Tata Power leads the roof top segment with more than 100 MW capacity , even though the market itself is struggling to take off. By all accounts, only 601 MW rooftop solar projects have been installed so far as available incentives have not been enough to move the market forward.
One of the reasons is that even though there is net-metering policy and policy proposals in many states, implementation has been tardy . It takes six to eight months in some states just to process paperwork.
There is no subsidy available for commercial and industrial customers, which make up almost 70% of the rooftop market.
Accelerated depreciation is set to come down to 40% in 2017-18 from the existing 80%. The government's decision to increase solar parks from 20 GW to 40 GW to make up for slow rooftop adoption indicates that the 40 GW rooftop solar goal by 2022 is not rooftop dependent.
Tariff
2016: drops to Rs.3
The Times of India, December 1, 2016
The Times of India
At Rs 3 per unit, solar power tariff sinks to new low
It's not just oil that is on a slide. While globally crude has slid some 70% in the last year-and-ahalf, solar power tariffs have sunk to a new low of Rs 3 per unit the same as average cost of power from state-run NTPC's coal-fired plants.
The new record came from Gurgaon-based Amp from Gurgaon-based Amplus Energy Solutions in a Solar Energy Corporation of India's auction of rooftop solar power projects and beats the previous low of Rs 4 per unit for a solar park in Rajasthan by a quarter.
The rooftop projects will be installed on buildings of NGOs, educational institutes, hospitals, trusts and notfor-profit companies in these states. The lowest tariff quote for these projects is same as average tariff offered by state-run generation utility NTPC for power from its coal-fired plants and nearly half of tariffs charged by some private power producers.
Till now, a solar project at Badhla in Rajasthan held the record for the lowest tariff at Rs 4 per unit in the solar park category . The lowest tariff before that was Rs 4.34 per unit, quoted by Fortum India in January for one of the six packets of 70 mw (420 mw total) each bid out by state-run generation utility NTPC for an earlier phase of the Bhadla solar park. SunEdison was the first to pull down solar power tariffs below the Rs 5 per unit-mark by quoting a tariff of Rs 4.63 per unit for a project in Andhra Pradesh.
In a statement issued on Wednesday , Amplus said the Rs 3 per unit tariff will apply to grid-connected rooftop projects in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Puducherry .
Similar projects in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra will get solar power at Rs 5.56 per unit. For Rajasthan, the tariff will be Rs 5.38 a unit, The price for Haryana will be Rs 5.76 and Punjab will be Rs 6.20 per unit.
Advantages of using solar power
solar rooftop plants are cheaper backup than DG sets: Jan 11 2017, The Times of India
Solar rooftop units could be a much cheaper option for large apartment complexes, which usually depend on polluting diesel generator sets for power backup. A new study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found that the cost of using solar plants is less than half of what one would spend on a DG set.
The study reveals that the cost of power generation from a DG set, including the capital cost, is Rs 27-33 per unit, compared to rooftop solar tariff of Rs 10 per unit. Though most consumers perceive solar power to be expensive, prices of panels have fallen sharply in the past few years, thus bringing down the cost of rooftop projects.The cost of solar panels account for 50-55% of the total project cost.
The photo voltaic module prices have fallen from 1.95 euros per watt in March 2010 to 0.53 euros in July 2016. “The cost of electricity generation through solar rooftop with battery backup comes to around Rs 7-8 per unit, which is half the cost of electricity supplied through DG sets. In addition, rooftop plants can reduce the monthly bill of the consumers as the extra units generated through these plants can be supplied to the grid,“ the report said.
To compare the costs of solar rooftop and DG sets, CSE, along with cKinetics--an advisory firm--conducted a feasibility study of five housing societies in Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan. Two of these are Satisar in Dwarka, which has 245 flats and a 112 KW DG set (partial backup).Satisar faces an outage of about 48 minutes per day .
The other is ICON in Gurgaon, which has 344 flats with a1,112 KW DG set (full backup). ICON faces about 16 minutes of outage per day . The team assessed the feasibility based on various parameters such as rooftop area, load needs and average outages. Two models were considered--Capex--the residential society pays for the capital costs of installing the solar rooftop and RESCO, under which installation is done by a developer. Societies pay a pre-decided tariff on a monthly basis.
Under both models, the cost of supply of power was between Rs 6 and Rs 9 for all the societies. As a backup system for outages, a rooftop plant will work only if it has battery storage. In other words, it's like an inverter fuelled by clean energy , experts explained.
A BSES Rajdhani Power Limited official has clarified that solar rooftops will have to work with reliable grid supply since they cannot provide full backup unlike DG sets. “Solar rooftop can meet basic needs during brief outages but cannot provide full backup (power to run energy-intensive appliances like ACs),“ he said.
The report reasons that with the decrease in duration of outages, the use of DG sets in residential societies has declined to only 200-300 hours per year. The BSES official highlighted that there were other benefits of having a solar rooftop plant--they could bring down power bills apart from providing backup during outages.
