The Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) in the state of Karnataka (India) has decided that all future purchases of wind power on its territory will now be done through competitive bidding processes and has set a ceiling tariff of RUP3.45/kWh (US$5.1c/kWh) for these future wind power auctions. Karnataka is planning to add only 975 MW of wind power in 2019 and 2020 and estimates that the introduction of competitive auctions could bring down the tariff considerably lower than RUP3/kWh in the near future, as it happened in other states.
The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) initiated wind power auctions in early 2017 but so far, only a few Indian states have held wind power tenders (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat). Karnataka plans to hold one in the near future and will switch from the feed-in-tariff (FiTs) scheme to auctions. The FiT rate of RUP3.45/kWh set by the KERC is much lower than the previous September 2017 rate (RUP3.74/kWh).