Ground mounted

Under a new tariff-based competitive bidding system, Indian farmers can set up solar plants ranging in size from 500 kW to 2 MW on uncultivable farmland, so they can sell the electricity to state distribution companies. They can also lease their land for PV arrays. The fixed ceiling tariff is INR 3.10 ($0.04)/kWh, with bidding scheduled to close on June 15.

Rays Experts has agreed to supply plug-and-play infrastructure for up to 3 GW of PV projects across 9,000 acres in Bikaner district, Rajasthan.

Ahmedabad-based Gensol has won 15 MWp of “captive” solar projects in Goa, Gujarat and Punjab. The total project value is INR 37.5 crore ($4.86 million).

Webdyn’s Indian unit has supplied remote monitoring tech and hybrid power management solutions for 4.2 GW of solar plants since 2015, while Italian inverter maker Fimer has supplied its 1 MVA inverters for a new integrated solar-plus-storage project in Gujarat.

State-owned hydropower producer SJVN has awarded a 1 GW solar engineering, procurement, and construction project to Tata Power Solar. The PV installation will be built in Rajasthan with an investment of around INR 5,492 crore ($720 million).

NTPC has invited bids to carry out the feasibility study for canal-top, elevated-module mounting structure and floating solar at its Tanda thermal power station in the Ambedkar Nagar district.

Bidders have until February 28 to lodge their interest in developing grid-connected, ground-mounted solar plants in sizes of 2-10 MW in various districts of Maharashtra. The ceiling tariff is fixed at INR 3.10/kWh.

The solar plants are to be installed in 2 MW to 10 (2×5) MW sizes for giving daytime power to agricultural consumers. Bidding closes on December 20.

New investors and technological complexity demand new approaches to O&M service provision, argues NovaSource’s Timo Moeller. With larger PV fleets and the ability to process the operational data of generation, pure-play O&M may continue to deliver on solar’s cost learning curve.

December 8 is the bidding deadline to set up solar power plants on uncultivable farmland for selling the generated power to the State Discoms. The ceiling tariff is fixed at INR 3.66/kWh. The plants, in sizes of 500 kW to 2 MW, shall come upon land within a 5 km radius of substations in the State.