UPDATE - India’s ACME bags 100 MW in Karnataka PV auction

India-based ACME Group said Wednesday it had won 100 MW in the 500-MW Karnataka photovoltaic (PV) power tender after bidding for a power sale tariff of INR 4.79 (USD 0.072/EUR 0.064) per kWh.

The total cost of the Pavagada solar park is estimated at INR 7.5 billion. The firm will break ground on the facility by July 2016, with commissioning scheduled for 2017. Once completed, the PV plant is expected to be able to generate 110,721 GWh of electricity annually.

The domestic solar farm operator was chosen among 14 companies which participated in the competitive bidding process, according to the press release. The other winners are Yarrow Infrastructure, Adani Power, Tata Power, Goldman Sachs-backed ReNew Solar and Finland's Fortum Oyj (HEL:FUM1V). The latter is the only foreign winner in the auction in which all of the successful bids were below INR 5.00/kWh.

The solar power scheme falls under Batch III of the second phase of the National Solar Mission programme. ACME will work together with the government of Karnataka, the country’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Indian power producer NTPC Ltd (BOM:532555) on this project, founder and chairman, Manoj Kumar Upadhyay, noted.

ACME’s solar projects portfolio now stands at 1,329 MW. The company aims to increase its installed PV capacity from 1,500 MWp at present to 7,500 MW by 2019.

(INR 10 = USD 0.150/EUR 0.133)

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