ACME Platinum Urja Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Indian solar developer ACME Solar Holdings, has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for a 200MW solar project, to be co-located with battery storage, in India.
The project consists of a 200MW solar PV system, co-located with a 100MW/400MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), from which SECI will offtake power for 25 years. Under the terms of the PPA, SECI will acquire power for INR3.42/kWh (US$0.05/kWh), in line with some of the bids awarded by SECI for a solar-plus-storage tender last July, which saw the renewable technologies be competitive with coal.
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The news follows the signing of a separate PPA for 150MW of the project’s solar capacity in October 2024, also between ACME and SECI, and the latest PPA means the project’s entire solar capacity is now accounted for.
ACME expects to begin commercial operations at the project in 2027, from which point the developer will be required to deliver a capacity utilisation factor of 25-27% during solar hours and minimum availability of 70% on a monthly basis—plus 85% on an annual basis—during evening peak hours.
The group’s sustained investment into the solar-plus-storage space follows its placement of an order for 3.1GWh of batteries from Trina Storage and Narada Power, two Chinese system integrators. At the time, it was suggested that the batteries could be used for Firm & Dispatchable Renewable Energy (FDRE) projects, a type of renewables-plus-storage project for which tenders are offered in India with certain restrictions, such as a round-the-clock (RTC) model of power delivery.
Earlier this week, the ACME Group was announced as one of several winners of a separate tender for 130MW of solar capacity to supply RTC power to a railway network, led by India’s Railway Energy Management Company (REMC). This follows ACME’s receipt of a contract for an FDRE solar-plus-storage project from India’s Navratna public sector utility company Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN), both of which suggest that these projects are indeed a priority for the ACME Group.
