The Indian Government has warned that all companies that have been placed on the shortlist to qualify for incentives under the country's program to boost solar power generation will have to submit final bids by Nov. 16, reports Bloomberg.
“They will inform the eligible people, who will give their bids by November 15 or 16,” said Deepak Gupta, secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. “That will be the date to watch for.”
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The program, which offers incentives such as special tariffs and a power-bundling arrangement designed to assure projects of buyers, has so far received applications from solar project developers to build at least three times the proposed capacity of the National Solar Mission's first set of projects.
Due to this large amount of interest, the government has agreed to select developers based on the discount they offer for the rate at which they sell their electricity. The commission set a price of 17.91 rupees (US$0.40) per kilowatt hour for solar photovoltaic projects and 15.31 rupees for solar thermal projects.
The National Solar Mission aims to increase India's grid-connected solar capacity to 1000MW by 2013 and 20,000MW by 2022. The invitation for applications to build the first round of projects, including 150MW of solar PV plants and 470MW of solar thermal plants, closed on September 24.
Under the program, power trading company NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam will buy the solar plants' generated electricity and bundle it with cheaper coal-fired electricity from its parent company NTPC. The bundled power will then be sold to distribution companies.
