Planned call for bids for four pilot Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants in India

India plans to auction four concentrated solar thermal power projects with a combined 120 megawatts of capacity, the Hindu Business Line reported.

The government-run Solar Energy Corp. of India will call for bids in a year, the newspaper reported. The projects will be eligible for 10.2 billion rupees ($183 million) of government grants, it said.

Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a newly formed public sector company, plans to call for bids for four pilot solar thermal power projects, requiring an investment of about Rs 2,555 crore. The projects have been sanctioned viability gap funding (VGF) of Rs 1,020 crore and the bidders who seek the least funding will bag the projects.

SECI will throw these projects for international competitive bidding in a year. It is targeting a tariff of Rs 5.83 per kWhr, fixed over a 25-year period. The projects will be of varied technologies (within solar thermal) and will come up in Gujarat (35 MW), Rajasthan (40 MW), Tamil Nadu (25 MW) and Andhra Pradesh (20 MW).

The new projects are in line with SECI