Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy (RE) development in India
January-June 2017
Volume 1, Issue 5
ContentsIREDA
02
JICA
02
Exhibit 1. Project Updates
03
Exhibit 2. Clean-tech Sector Roundup
04
Exhibit 3 News and Analysis
05
Solar Rooftop Installation on Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh
2 Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India
JICA is the world’s largest bilateral development organisation, operating in around 150 countries to help some
of the globe’s most vulnerable people. It coordinates official development assistance (ODA) for the Government of Japan and is globally the largest provider of ODA. Its work spans a broad spectrum
of issues—education, information communication and technology, healthcare, climate change, agriculture, energy, etc.
JICA has been supporting the development of India’s RE sector since 2011 by supplying two lines of credit of 30 billion
JPY to IREDA. This concessional credit, coupled with technical expertise, has supported the growth of India’s RE sector by almost 70% to around 42.75 GW in the last five years. The first line of credit was awarded for the years 2011–14 and the second line of credit (2014–2017) is now under implementation.
The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) is a non-banking financial company
(NBFC) under the administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). It is a public limited government company and is classified as a ‘Miniratna Category I’ organisation by the Government of India.
The organisation has been active in promoting, developing and extending
financial assistance for renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) projects through innovative financial mechanisms. It is currently the biggest financial contributor of India’s RE sector. Headquartered in Delhi, IREDA has its branches and camp offices in Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. It caters to the wind, hydro, solar, biomass, cogeneration, waste to energy, EE, biofuel, new and emerging energy and hybrid sectors.
IREDA
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
1.
2.
New fund and non-fund based financing schemes
• Line of credit to NBFCs for on-lending to RE/EE projects
• Short-term loan assistance to RE developers/suppliers/contractors
• Bridge loan assistance to RE developers against capital subsidies/viability gap fund (VGF)/GBIs available under various state/central government schemes
• Policy on underwriting of debt/loan syndication
• Guarantee assistance scheme to RE suppliers/promoters
• Biofuel Potential in India- Market Roundup
• Workshop on financial modelling • EVs the emerging markets
• India’s largest floating solar PV
• Key Developments in power sector
• Wind auction scheme for 1000 MW ISTS
• Highlights of RE projections from National Electricity Plan draft
• GST impact on Renewable Energy
• Solar aggressive bidding
• REC markets
• Renewable Energy Trends
• Provosions for Renewable Energy in budget 2017-18
Project financing
Equipment financing
Loans for manufacturing
Financial intermediaries
Financing of commissioned projects, including takeover of loans from other banks/financial institutions (FIs)
Additional/bridge loan against sugar development fund (SDF) loan
Loan against securitisation
IREDA’s financing schemes
Inside this Publication
Project Updates News and Analysis
Clean-Tech Sector Roundup
Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India 3
Biofuel Potential in India - Market RoundupRationale behind the biofuels adoption in IndiaThe emergence of Biofuel as a renewable source offers plenty of opportunities for mitigation of alarming climate change and greater energy independence to many countries. Biofuels are increasingly envisaged as an effective way of reducing the emissions of the greenhouse gases and an alternative to fossil fuels that are limited in availability.
A developing country like India, which imports 75 per cent of its crude and petroleum products, is highly susceptible to two risks: global warming and high fluctuating oil prices in international market. The use of Biofuel, ethanol in specific for transportation and industrial applications has received ever increasing support in environmental policy making around the globe. The government of India launched a large scale biofuel program in several states to adopt ethanol blending in petrol (Motor spirit) and bio-diesel blending in high speed diesel.
Overview of Biofuels TechnologyBiofuels are liquid fuels derived from organic matter such as waste plant and animal matter rather than a fuel produced by geological processes which involves fossil fuels. There are two types of biofuels majorly in production in India; Bio-ethanol and Bio-diesel. Biofuels can be derived directly form plants and indirectly from agriculture, commercial and industrial waste. Historically, the interest in biofuels in India is driven by ethanol price stability and feedstock availability. Ethanol in specific relies almost exclusively on sugarcane molasses for feedstock, followed
Exhibit 1. - Project Updates
Figure 2: Types of Biofuels and their advantages
Bio
fuel
s
Bio-ethanol
First Generation
Cereal Crops
Sugar Crops
Jatropha, used and waste oil etc.
Bio-diesel
Wheat, Maize, Barley and Rye
Sweet Sorghum, Sugar Cane and
Sugar Beat
Sugar cane bagasse, corn stover, saw
mill and paper mill discards etc.
Lignocellulosic Biomass
Second Generation
Figure 3: Approach and Methodology for biofuel potential assessment in India
• Site visit to different distilleries in India
• Stakeholder interactions- Associations, manufacturers, producers, bankers etc.
• Performance review of the ethanol plants based on- technology, financial, production capacity etc.
• Assessment of policies at centre and state level for biofuels
• Analysis of impact of policy change on price and production of ethanol
Review of international experience for biofuels in 3 countries-
• USA,
• Thailand
• Brazil
• Estimating the financial health of ethanol producing companies
• Review of project appraisal parameters for ethanol plants
1. Site Visits 2. Performance Review
4. Global experience
3. Policy and regulatory initiatives
5. Financial Assessmnt
by grain based on few states in India.
Assessment of Investment Potential of Ethanol in IndiaAs per the National Biofuel policy, launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; the Oil Marketing Companies were mandated to blend 20% of ethanol with petrol by 2017. However, the blending capacity has reached only 4%.
There is a lot of untapped potential for ethanol in India due to increasing demand from different segments like OMCs fuel blending and rising demand from chemical industries. India’s gross distillation capacity is around 6 billion liters per annum, out of which 75 percent is molasses based and 25 percent is grain based. To increase the production, the market requires integrated approach across its complete value chain. More than 70 percent of the sugar mills have not integrated with distilleries and exploring for different finance routes to devour the benefits of growing ethanol demand.
In order to achieve higher blending rates mandated by the GoI; investments need to be made in the ethanol industry. Hence, this study has been commissioned to assess the investment potential of ethanol and to provide a holistic view of the sector. This would also facilitate the investment opportunities for ethanol producers in terms of ease of approvals of loans by bankers and financial institutions.
The approach and methodology to be adopted has been illustrated below:
Figure 1: 2016 GHG emissions of Transportation Fuels with different energy processing types
Petrol Corn Ethanol with Natural Gas
19% in reduction
Baseline
Corn Ethanol with Biomass
52% in reduction
Sugar Cane with Bomass
78% in reduction
Cellulosic with Biomass
86% in reduction
Red
ucti
on in
GH
G (
%ag
e)
Fuel
4 Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India
Renewable Energy Trends in India
India’s energy usage has been rapidly increasing as a result of economic growth in the last decade. As of 31 March 2017, India’s power sector stands at a total capacity of 326.8 GW with Coal-fired plants accounting for the lion’s share of 192.2 GW of this installed capacity, followed by renewables that come in at over 57.2 GW, growing from 3.5GW in 2002, validating India’s focus and commitment to clean energy deployment.
Though wind energy has predominantly been the largest contributor of installed RE capacity, with its contribution a little below 60%, the share of solar has increased considerably from almost 1% to 20% during the last 5 years. Private sector investments, primarily driven by government incentives such as fiscal incentives, direct and indirect tax benefits, depreciation allowances and 100% FDI allowance have been the major drivers
of the renewable sector in India. The growth of renewable energy over the years has been depicted in the figure below.
2017-18 Budget- Provisions for RE sector
The union budget of India 2017-18 was presented in February 2017. There was a diverse reactions from different stakeholders few benefiting from the announcements and few disappointed for not reinstating the benefits of tax holidays and accelerated depreciation (two key incentives so far in solar sector). The capital requirement for meeting the ambitious RE deployment targets, with solar market along requiring $100 billion in debt to reach 100GW target at affordable and viable lending. The budget would have evaluated at this scale of need and opportunity.
In the renewable energy sector, the government’s commitment to add another 20 GW of solar capacity would help the country achieve 100 GW of solar by 2022. National environment fund continued to be shrouded by uncertainity, with government not declaring the proportion of cess to be moved to NEF. While the total cess collected until March 2017 was a mammoth Rs 55,000 crore, only Rs 25000 crore have been transferred to NEF, only half of which was spent on Renewable Energy.
Few key announcements from the budget are:
• Phase-2 of Solar Park development for additional 20,000 MW capacity to be taken up
• Accelerated depreciation reduced to 40%
• 10-year IT holiday under section 80-IA was not reinstated and will end on March 31, 2017.
• Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on Solar tempered glass reduced to zero from the 5 per cent.
• Budgetary allocation for MNRE has been increased by 9 percent to Rs.54.73 billion (~$809.93 million).
• 7,000 railway stations will be powered by solar energy in the next five years and 2,000 railway stations to join a 1,000 MW solar mission.
• The countervailing duty (CVD) on parts/raw materials used in the manufacturing of various solar energy operated applications, has been reduced to 6 percent from 12.5 percent.
• Resin and catalyst for use in manufacturing of wind generators, subject to actual user condition , BCD reduced to
Workshop on Financial Reporting and Modeling
The workshop on financial reporting and modeling was the fifth of ten workshops organized to develop the internal capacity of IREDA employees as per their training requirements. The workshop was conducted on 30th January 2017 at India Habitat Centre.
The agenda of the workshop included topics such as preparation and interpretation of profit and loss statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements; comparing the performance of entities via financial ratios; introduction to modeling; a case study on the interpretation of financial statements and also had a question and answer session to cater to any queries that the participants had in this sector.
The event was well supported by IREDA officials and saw an informative lecture by Mr. Biswadeep Parida, PwC’s internal expert for financial modelling & appraisal, followed by an active discussion catering to the specific queries of participants. He was supported by PwC’s experts from the renewable energy team.
Exhibit 2. - Clean-tech Sector Roundup
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Figure 6: Renewable Energy Trends in India
70000
MW
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
WtE Solar Power Bio-power Small Hydro Wind Power
Figure 4: Workshop on Financial Reporting & Modeling held at India Habitat Centre (IHC)
Diesel 0.25%Gas
7.63%
Nuclear 2.05% Hydro
13.51%
RE 17.66%
RE [PERCENTAGE]
Wind 9.85%
SHP 1.33%
Waste to energy 0.05%
Biomass 2.48%
Figure 5: Installed Power Capacity in India
Coal 58.89%
Solar 3.97%
Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India 5
Floating solar PV is the news for quite long time and government of India has taken solar PV installation to another level by installing country’s largest floating solar PV plant of capacity 100kWp in Kaymkulam, Kerala. Boasting it as a major step to achieve affordable power 24x7.
The 100 kWp solar PV floating plant, largest of its kind in India so far and indigenously developed has been installed at Rajiv
Gandhi Combined Cycle Power Plant (RGCCPP). Solar PV panels mounted on the floating boards save land usage; reduce evaporation and are found to be more efficient than the ones installed on the land.
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Installs India’s largest floating solar PV
No land acquisition/cost/uprooting trees/
availability issues
Reduction of evaporation and algae growth in water bodies
Increase in yield and efficiency due to natural
cooling
Reduced installation time
No deposition of dust, resulting in low
maintenance on cleaning
Figure 9 : Floating solar PV plant
Exhibit 3. - News and Analysis
EV’s the emerging market in India
Key developments in the last fiscal and anticipated all India power supply position for 2017-18
Figure 7: EVs pilot project in Nagpur, Maharashtra by Mahindra and Ola
5% from 7.5%, CVD reduced to NIL from 12.5%, SAD reduced to NIL from 4%.
• Pilot plants for environment friendly waste disposal and energy conversion are being set up at New Delhi and Jaipur railway stations, with five more solid waste management plants in pipeline
• MNRE to get a budgetary allocation of Rs 5473 crores in FY 2017-18, up from Rs. 5036 crores in FY 2016-17
• India to achieve 100% rural electrification by March, 2018 and a budgetary allocation of Rs. 4814 crores has been made for Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana
With rapidly evolving technologies and innovative business models, there is need to think and adopt clean, cost effective, and high efficient vehicular mobility services which will enaole low carbon footprint. Rapidly developing India is at a cusp of making such strides and has planned to adopt 100 per cent Electric Vehicles (EVs) by 2030. The below graphs depict the comparison of energy consumption and CO2 emissions patterns for business-as-usual (BAU)1 case and transformative approach through EVs
and shared mobility.
India is currently estimated to have 0.4 million electric two wheelers, 0.1 million e-rickshaws and a few thousand electric cars — certainly miniscule compared to the automotive fleet in India, which increased by 20.5 million in FY16 alone. The total EVs sales for the fiscal 2015-16 stood at 22,000 units (20,000 two wheelers & 2000 four-wheelers).
Under the 2020 plan of the National Electric Mobility Mission, the government plans to create a potential demand for 5 to 7 million electric vehicles, including buses, light commercial vehicles, two-wheelers and three-wheelers, as well as electric cars.
India stands at fifth position in terms of electricity generation capacity in the world pegged at 3, 29,205 MW including conventional and non-conventional power. A generating capacity addition of 13,405 MW has been considered in the Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) The Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) is brought out annually by Central Electricity Authority towards fulfillment of its obligations under section 73(a) of the Electricity Act, 2003. The annual Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) for the year 2017-18 is the thirty-sixth publication in the series brought out by CEA. for 2017-18. These measures are expected to facilitate the deficit states to reduce /
eliminate their shortages.
The CEA estimates that the Eastern region will meet its demand almost entirely while the other four regions will have a surplus varying from 3 percent to 13 percent with 3 percent in the North-Eastern region, 7.4 percent in the Southern region, 9.8 percent in the Northern region, and 13 percent in the Western region. In terms of peak power, the Northern, Western, Eastern, Southern, and North-Eastern regions are likely to have peak surpluses of 6.7 percent, 17.2 percent, 1 percent, 10 percent, and 2.7 percent respectively.
(sou
rce:
Sw
elec
t Ene
rgy
Syst
ems)
1 The estimations references are from the report released by Niti Aayog and RMI and image source: Ola Group
Ener
gy re
quir
emen
t (M
toe) Business as
usual case
Adopting Evs and Shared Mobility
Figure 8: Energy Consumption comparison with EVs and Conventional Vehicles
2015
250
200
150
100
50
02017 2022 2024 2030
6 Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India
The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) tendered 1,000 MW of Interstate Transmission System (ISTS)-connected wind power projects under Tranche-II. The bid-submission deadline is July 14, 2017. The projects will be developed on a build own and operate basis and the power produced will be sold to SECI. The SECI has also said that an additional 100 MW
capacity can be awarded to Central Public-Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) willing to undertake development of ISTS-connected wind power projects on a “build own operate” basis without participation in the bidding process; matching the lowest bid tariff from the reverse auction.
The SECI has set an upper tariff ceiling at
Rs.4 (~$0.062)/kWh. A bidder can bid for a minimum capacity of 50 MW and a maximum capacity of 250 MW. Minimum capacity that will be awarded to a CPSE will be 50 MW and the allocation of the capacity will be done on a first come first serve basis.
Another Wind Auction Scheme for 1000 MW Interstate Transmission System (ISTS) is tendered by Government
Renewables, Nuclear and Hydro will be more than 50 percent in overall energy mix by 2027, as per the NEP3 draft. The ministry releases a National Electricity Plan every five years, and sets out a detail
action plan for the next 10 years with the overarching aim of achieving universal access to electricity across India and ensuring that power is supplied efficiently at affordable price.
NEP3 is significantly more upbeat, predicting that non-fossil power will make up 46.8% of total installed capacity by 2021-22 and 56.5% by 2027–10 years from now, with total installed renewable capacity surpassing coal-based capacity around 2024.
The draft also states that India’s installed capacity of generation in 2022 will be 523 GW and will increase to 640 GW by 2027. This assumes that India will achieve 175 GW of installed renewable capacity by March 2022 and subsequently 100 GW of renewable capacity will be added by March 2027.
Non-fossil fuels will lead the India’s energy mix by 2027 according to third National Electricity Plan (NEP3) Draft
Inst
alle
d C
apac
ity
(MW
)
Time Period
Fossil Non-Fossil capacity Percentage of non-fossil
% o
f cap
acit
y as
non
-fos
sil
Figure 10: Growth Projections for installed capacity as per NEP3 draft
400000
Mar-17 Mar-22 Mar-27
60%50%40%30%20%10%0%
300000
200000
100000
0
The decision by central government indirect tax body, the Goods and Service Tax (GST) council, to levy 5 per cent tax on solar panels instead of 18 per cent which was proposed earlier could mean a marginal increase of 3-4 percent in overall cost of setting up solar PV plants. Which is much more manageable situation compared to the initially expected 18 percent GST rate. Solar PV project developers, Manufacturing companies and suppliers will have to get back to their
drawing boards to reevaluate their costs and strategy and have to work on the impact of 5 percent GST in to their cost structure. GST replaced several taxes: central excise duty, services tax, additional customs duty, surcharges, state-level value added tax and Octroi. Other levies which were applicable on inter-state transportation of goods have also been done away with in GST regime.
Key factors that contribute to increase in
solar capex after GST rollout would be increase in operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, civil and work contracts. The increase in cost will also vary from state to state, higher for states like Rajasthan and Haryana, where the Entry Tax Exemptions and Value Added Tax are currently provided for solar equipment. This will have positive impact in states like Gujarat and Andhra where Tax exemptions are not provided.
GST rate of 5 per cent for solar PV modules/cells and other components
Table 1: Impact of GST on materials and service cost for Solar PV plants
Item % of project cost Previous Tax Rate Current Tax Rate Difference (%)
Solar PV Modules 60 0 5 5
Imported Inverters (Net import duty is 5.15 percent after availing MNRE 12.5 percent tax exemption)
6 5.15 5 -0.15
Cables 3 2 5 3
Domestic Inverters (CST) 6 2 5 3
Structures (CST) 6 2 5 3
Balance of systems (BOS) 13 2 5 3
Civil Contracts 8 10-11 18 8
Service Contracts (Installation and Commissioning 3 15 18 3
Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India 7
Tariff for solar have fallen to record low below 2.5 Rs/kWh, giving boost to government ambitious plans for solar. The solar PV tariffs have been plummeting on
fortnight basis since last year taking the advantage of solar park model, strong off-taker payment security mechanism, cheap financing and reduction in technology
cost. Figure gives the trends in solar PV tariffs in India, the lowest being the 2.44 Rs/kWh bagged by ACME solar in Bhadla Phase III auction.
Aggressive Solar Bidding in the Q1 2017 Breached 2.5 Mark
Figure 11: Solar PV tariffs trends in India14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
12.16
8.798.36 8.73
8.34
8.05
6.456.87 6.86
6.756.94 6.72
7.16
5.36 5.73 5.62 5.65
4.635.08
5.75
4.635.12 5
4.354.78 5.04
5.87
5.354.79 4.67
4.84
3.313.14
2.622.44
Highest Bid (Rs./KwH) Lowest (Rs./KwH) Weighted Avg. Price (Rs./KwH)
Key drivers for lower LCOE for solar PV in India and prime factors considered by developers while arriving at low tariff:
Conducive policy by Government of India
Government of India included SECI under the ambit of tripartite agreement for payment security mechanism in case of defaults by state distribution companiesEliminating the inherent risk associated with liquidity generated from power sale by the developers during the project tenure
High Energy Yield
7-10 per cent higher energy yield in the selected sites like Rajasthan Use of single axis tracker that can tilt for greater angleLower ground coverage ratio, i.e. more land per MW peak.Use of shorter strings in the inverters and DC optimizers in the architecture will reduce the balancing losses.
Lower Cost of Capex
Drop in module prices in international markets by 20 per centDevelopers had leveraged the benefits of demand supply glut in Chinese markets.Many developers locked the declined module prices, since the commercial operation date for solar PV parks is around 11 months.
Innovation in Opex
Newly gained capabilities like robotic cleaning Drone based image analytics Artificial intelligence based generation forecasting
Leveraging debt equity
Strengthening of Indian Rupee against US dollar and economics of scale.Lucrative interest rates, lower weighted average cost of capital including lower risk premium.Long loan tenure.
Grid Integration
Improved grid reliability and dedicated green corridors are under wayDeemed generation status for solar PV parks
The Renewable energy certificates (REC) market launched in 2010, now rock-bottomed with more than 10 million certificates going unsold. REC represents the green attributes of electricity generated from renewable energy sources, which can be separately traded at power exchanges. The REC market is driven by obligated entities like distribution companies, open access consumers and captive power consumers.
As on May 2017, REC inventory to the tune of 17.96 million is pending for trade at the power exchange, of which 13.17 million
REC market trends and Supreme Court stay on trading
Figure 12: Volume of solar RECs traded and unsold inventory
6000000 250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
5000000
4000000
3000000
2000000
1000000
0
RECs redeemed through exchange
Closing balance of RECs
8 Newsletter on the JICA-IREDA initiative to promote renewable energy development in India
Contact DetailsAditi Puri
Lead Development Specialist, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA India Office) 16th Floor, Hindustan Times House,18-20, Kasturba Gandhi Marg,New Delhi – 110001, Tel: 011- 4909 7000
Amit Kumar
Partner, Energy & Utilities, PwC +91 (124) 330 6413 | +91 9899452400 Email: [email protected] PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. LtdBuilding 10, Tower C, 17th Floor, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon - 122 002
Debjani Bhatia
Deputy General Manager | IREDA+91 (11) 246 82214| +91 9871464382Email: [email protected] Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd.Core 4 - A, 1st Floor, East CourtIndia Habitat Centre, Lodi Road, Delhi 110 003
Table 2: RECs inventory with power developers
Accredited Capacity (MW) Registered Capacity (MW) RECs Issued (Lacs) RECs Traded so far (Lacs) Inventory (Lacs)
Non-Solar 4790 3805 338 Lacs 199 Lacs 128 Lacs
Solar 749 729 64 Lacs 16.57 Lacs 47.92 Lacs
Figure 13: REC Price trends in India2
18000
Jun-10 Aug-11 Dec-14 Feb-17
Solar Forbearance Price (Rs/MWh) Solar Floor Price (Rs/MWh) Non-Solar Forbearance Price (Rs/MWh)
Non-Solar Floor Price (Rs/MWh) Linear (Solar Floor Price (Rs/MWh)
16000
18000
14000
12000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
2 REC price trends and inventory data is obtained from IEX website
Other highlights
Solar Imports Grew by 35 Percent YOY, Exports Declined by 60 Percent in 2016-17 Fiscal
In the financial year (FY) 2016-17, $ 3.2 billion (~ 207.95 billion) of import was registered in the Indian solar sector, according to Department of Commerce. The figures were up by 36% from FY 2015-16, with China being the largest importer accounting for 88.2% of total imports.
DISCOMS Rating: Gujarat bags num-ber one, Tripura Last
According to the “Integrated Rating for State Power Distribution Utilities” conducted by the Min-istry of Power, the four Gujarat state power distribution utilities (DISCOMs) have emerged as top performers for the fifth year in a row. Tripura has replaced Meghalaya at the bottom of rating table.
Second Bond offering worth $311.5 million made by NTPC
The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), a government-owned power utility, has priced its second, rupee-denominated five-year masala bond offering for Rs.20 billion (~$311.5 million), in the international markets on April 25, 2017.
81 percent increase in solar electricity in FY 2016-17
Solar in India accounted for ~13.5 billion units of electricity produced in the country during the financial year (FY) 2016-17, up from ~7.4 billion units in FY2015-16, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), registering an 81 percent year over year (YoY).
IREDA launches mobile apps for man-ging vendor payments for wind and solar based incentives
Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) has launched mobile apps for managing vendor payments and wind and solar generation based incentives. These apps are expected to help IREDA provide efficient online services to customers and vendors.
DISCOMS benefited from demonetiza-tion to recover pending electricity bills
The demonetization program has proved to be a positive for India’s power distribution companies (DISCOMs). The Power Finance Corporation (PFC) stated that DISCOMs across the country were paid a total of Rs.28.75 billion (~$430.21 million) against pending electricity bill payments.
are non-solar RECs while 4.79 million are solar RECs. The demand for RECs has however increased in the past few months, specifically, months of January (1.57 million traded), February (1.09 million traded) and March 2017 (1.03 million traded) have seen several Discoms purchase RECs from the market.
While determining the new pricing structure, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) considered the variations in cost of generation of different renewable energy technologies, the average pooled cost of power, expected electricity generation from renewable energy sources and renewable purchase obligation targets. In March 2017, CERC in its order computed the floor price of solar REC at Rs 1 a unit and forbearance price at Rs 2.5 a unit. In earlier revision it was Rs 3.5 a unit and Rs
5.8 a unit, respectively. For non-solar RECs the prices have been reduced to Rs 1 a unit (floor price) and forbearance price at 2.9 a unit. This led to backslash from the REC- generating companies, which filed
a petition in the Supreme Court against the order arguing that a vintage multiplier was not provided. Basis this, the apex court has stayed the whole mechanism and trading.
Assignment UpdateThe Central Project Data Monitoring System (CPDMS) for wind projects has been developed and hosted. In consultation with IREDA’s wind energy team, the modules and interface of the system were tailored to suit their requirements. Demos of the system have also been provided to familiarise IREDA’s staff with the system. Additionally, the structure of a documentary on solar energy has been developed and finalised after incorporating the suggestions of all stakeholders.
