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In India’s Hot Summer, the Solar Market Overheats
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/539671/in-indias-hot-summer-the-solar-market-overheats/[font face=Serif]Richard Martin
July 24, 2015
[font size=5]In India’s Hot Summer, the Solar Market Overheats[/font]
[font size=4]Record low auction prices indicate an unsustainable solar rush is accelerating.[/font]
[font size=3]The land rush in the India solar power market has officially begun. This year analysts expect India to add two gigawatts of solar capacity, more than double the total added in 2014. Under the National Solar Mission, which calls for 100 gigawatts—about the total electricity capacity of Spain—of new solar power generation to be built by 2022, the government has begun to auction off 15 gigawatts of solar power projects across the country.
Early results from those auctions are striking. In Madhya Pradesh, Canadian developer Sky Power won the bidding with an offer of 5.05 rupees (about $.07) per kilowatt-hour. That auction, intended to bid out 300 megawatts of solar generation, attracted bids totaling 2,200 megawatts, at rates below six rupees per kilowatt-hour. That is well below the 7.04 rupee per kilowatt-hour that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has determined is the threshold of viability for solar PV projects.
Earlier, U.S. provider First Solar bid 5.25 rupees ($.08) per kilowatt-hour for a solar project in Andhra Pradesh.
These below-cost bids “show (that) large-scale solar is slipping further down the price-ladder,” wrote The Climate Group, meaning that “power generation from solar plants in India is now cheaper than indigenous or imported coal.”
…[/font][/font]
July 24, 2015
[font size=5]In India’s Hot Summer, the Solar Market Overheats[/font]
[font size=4]Record low auction prices indicate an unsustainable solar rush is accelerating.[/font]
[font size=3]The land rush in the India solar power market has officially begun. This year analysts expect India to add two gigawatts of solar capacity, more than double the total added in 2014. Under the National Solar Mission, which calls for 100 gigawatts—about the total electricity capacity of Spain—of new solar power generation to be built by 2022, the government has begun to auction off 15 gigawatts of solar power projects across the country.
Early results from those auctions are striking. In Madhya Pradesh, Canadian developer Sky Power won the bidding with an offer of 5.05 rupees (about $.07) per kilowatt-hour. That auction, intended to bid out 300 megawatts of solar generation, attracted bids totaling 2,200 megawatts, at rates below six rupees per kilowatt-hour. That is well below the 7.04 rupee per kilowatt-hour that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has determined is the threshold of viability for solar PV projects.
Earlier, U.S. provider First Solar bid 5.25 rupees ($.08) per kilowatt-hour for a solar project in Andhra Pradesh.
These below-cost bids “show (that) large-scale solar is slipping further down the price-ladder,” wrote The Climate Group, meaning that “power generation from solar plants in India is now cheaper than indigenous or imported coal.”
…[/font][/font]
