More wind power projects to go under hammer next fiscal

Transparency has brought down the tariff of wind power, said Piyush Goyal

Buoyed by drop in tariff to record low of Rs 3.46 per unit in the first auction of wind power, the government is mulling putting on the block more such projects next fiscal.

"Transparency which is the hallmark of the Modi government, has brought down the tariff of wind power. There will be more and more such projects on the block," Power, Coal, Mines and New & Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal told PTI.

Asked whether he is expecting wind power tariff to fall further in a more competitive environment, he said: "That is the beauty of tariff based competitive bidding. We cannot predict the tariff. It is the bidders who decide what price should be quoted. I cannot interfere in that."

Goyal was of the view that the average wind tariff was hovering above Rs 5 per unit earlier due to feeding of rates and lack of transparency.

"We will be looking at more wind power projects auction in the next financial year. We will formalise it. We have not decided yet on the quantum as it all depends upon the states demand because the projects are backed by them," New & Renewable Energy Secretary Rajeev Kapoor said.

The wind power tariff has been decided so far on the basis of inputs provided by power regulators such as cost of land and equipment and borrowing expenses.

However, the feed in tariff used to remain same for the periods as long as 25 years and there was no fuel cost involved as in the case of thermal power.

An industry expert said that now the feed in tariff would not survive for a very long time and there would more and more auctions in wind power segment in view of success of the first auction concluded yesterday.

The wind power tariff touched record low of Rs 3.46 per unit in first even auction conducted last week by the state- run Solar Energy Corp (SECI) where firms Mytrah Energy, Green Infra Wind Energy, Inox Wind Infrastructure Services, Ostro Kutch Wind and Adani Green Energy emerged as the lowest bidders.

The auction witnessed aggressive bidding despite an advisory issued by industry body to avoid bold bids.

The Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association had reportedly issued an advisory to some players before the auction started in view of uncertainties due to the GST implementation.

The auction assumes significance because India has set an ambitious target of having 60 GW of wind power capacity by 2022.

The wind power deployment in the country started in early 1990s. The current wind power installed capacity is nearly 28.7 GW, accounting for over 9 per cent of the total installed capacity of 314.64 GW as in January, 2017.

Globally, India is at the fourth position after China, the US and Germany in terms of wind capacity installation. The Centre has set an ambitious target of 175 GW power from renewable energy resources by 2022 and out of this, 60 GW has to come from wind power.