Govt mulling wind project auction every month

The government is proposing to undertake auction of wind power projects every month while ensuring that the prices are not jacked up by the industry.
Speaking at an event here, New and Renewable Energy Secretary Anand Kumar today said the government would bring out bids of wind power projects every month as desired by Union Minister Piyush Goyal.
The renewable energy minister said that with monthly auction, the government would like to see more and more auctions of wind power.
"Our effort is to scale up all modes of energy so that pricing can be made more competitive and economies of scale come in.

"But we will also have to calibrate it based on the pricing that we determine. We would not like that bids come out so frequently that pricing goes up. So it will be a calibrated move which we would be continuously monitoring," Goyal said.
The minister also said it was time for the government to have a relook at whether there was really a need to have separate Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPOs).

"It is time we should have a relook at whether we really need to have separate RPOs anymore. We should let the states decide what is best in their interest, how they can serve their people," Goyal said.

The government is planning to auction wind power projects of about 4 gigawatt (GW) capacity in tranches in the ongoing fiscal.
The auction is part of the government's plan to set up wind power capacity of 60 GW by 2022.