Vena Energy and JSW emerge as winners of SECI wind energy auction, bag 970 megawatts

BENGALURU: Vena Energy emerged as the lowest bidder in a wind auction conducted by the Solar Energy Corporation of India on Friday, winning 160 MW at Rs 2.99 per unit. JSW Energy was a close second, winning 810 MW at Rs 3.00 per unit.
The tender was for 2500 MW but only 970MW was awarded. A SECI official confirmed the results of the auction.

SECI is the nodal agency through which the renewable energy ministry conducts wind and solar auctions. The last wind auction it conducted was in August 2019 where the winning tariffs were in the range of Rs 2.83-2.84 per unit.

This tender received very few bid submissions despite being issued several times. Eventually, there were only three bidders, with Inox Wind being the third. The ministry had initially issued this as a pure wind tender, but has after a few amendments, gave developers the option of setting up solar capacity alongside as well.

Wind tenders have been heavily undersubscribed in the last 18 months. This could be attributed to problems in securing good sites with attractive wind resources and adequate access to transmission networks, experts said.

"It is not a surprise that despite the introduction of a small solar component, this tender was also undersubscribed. The high tariff is a pointer to the execution problems facing these projects and it remains to be seen if distribution companies accept these tariffs," said Vinay Rustagi, Managing Director of renewable energy consultancy firm Bridge To India.

The new and renewable energy ministry has been gradually moving away from conducting auctions for plain vanilla solar and wind tenders, towards hybrid wind-solar tenders.

"The entry of JSW, a large IPP, into the renewable business is a positive development for the sector," Rustagi said.