The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) of India has issued a new regulation authorising the tendering agencies and state utilities to remove tariff cap from wind and solar tenders. The upcoming federal tender (Round Ten) should not include a tariff cap. The decision is not expected to make a major difference for solar auctions, as prices are already quite low (INR2.5/kWh i.e. US$3c/kWh in the latest round) but could lead to a higher tariff for wind.
Recent allocation rounds faced massive under-subscription, and the latest wind tender (Round Nine) for 1.2 GW, which included an INR2.9/kWh tariff cap (US$4c/kWh), was rescheduled several times owing to a lack of interest from industry. As a consequence, the wind sector saw only 2.4 GW of new wind projects, in spite of a huge amount of auctioned capacity.
According to the government of India, installed renewable power capacity in India crossed the 84 GW threshold in December 2019 (84.4 GW), with wind power capacity reaching 37,280 MW, solar capacity 32,530 MW, biomass capacity 9,940 MW and small hydropower capacity 4,650 MW. India has set a target of 175 GW of renewable power capacity by 2022, including 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from biomass and 5 GW from small hydropower.
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