Solar energy company RattanIndia Solar, part of the RattanIndia Group, on Tuesday said it has won a 50 megawatt (MW) solar project in a reverse e-auction at a tariff of Rs.4.43 per kilo-watt hour (kWh), months after tariffs in the sector fell below Rs.5.
Solar tariffs hit a record-low in November last year with SunEdison Inc.’s bid of Rs.4.63 per kWh in a reverse online auction and have since fallen to Rs.4.34 at a January e-auction conducted by state-run National Thermal Power Ltd (NTPC).
Many have raised questions about the profitability and business viability of projects won at record-low tariffs, which are a result of aggressive bidding by both domestic and foreign companies.
RattanIndia Solar said it won the project in a reverse e-auction conducted by Solar Energy Corporation Ltd (SECI) in Allahabad on Tuesday. The project will receive a so-called viability gap funding of Rs.75 lakh per MW while the land for the project will be provided by Uttar Pradesh government, the company said in a statement.
In January, RattanIndia Solar, through its subsidiary Yarrow Infrastructure Ltd, won a 70 MW solar project at a tariff of Rs.4.36 per kWh in an NTPC-run reverse e-auction.
In a reverse auction, the role of buyer and seller is reversed and a business bid is won by quoting prices downwards.
RattanIndia Group is promoted by Rajiv Rattan who co-founded Indiabulls Group in 1999, with interests in financial services, real estate, power generation.
In July 2014, the power and infrastructure businesses were split from Indiabulls and rebranded as RattanIndia, with Rattan as chairman. The group has thermal power plants with installed capacity of over 1,620 MW, which will be expanded to 2,700 MW by 2016-end.
RattanIndia has solar projects of more than 240 MW across various states. It sells majority of the power produced at its plants to central government entities like NTPC and SECI.
“We are poised to provide clean and green energy at a competitive price and thus firmly moving ahead on our path of becoming the largest solar company of India”, said chief executive Anjali Rattan Nashier.
Source:Livemint
