Revised bidding guidelines for renewable energy: Fueling India’s Energy Transition
net zero emissions by 2070. To meet this objective, India has pledged to, inter alia, achieve 500 GW of installed electricity (about 50 per cent of cumulative installed power) from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030 as part of its NDCs under COP26.
It is a tall order for a country which currently has a total renewable energy capacity of 176.49 GW [1]. As a step towards meeting the targeted capacity addition, in April 2023, the Government declared the bidding trajectory for renewable energy by announcing its decision to invite bids of 50 GW of renewable energy annually for the next five years to complement capacities being developed under other schemes of the Government and States, as well as commercial and industrial segments under the open access regime.
This announcement was swiftly followed by a notification of revised guidelines by the Ministry of Power in July and August on tariff based competitive bidding process for the procurement of power from grid connected solar, wind and hybrid sources (Revised Guidelines) [2] in supersession of the guidelines issued in 2017. The Revised Guidelines are intended to introduce fairness, transparency and efficiency in the bidding process to provide impetus to private sector participation.
One of the key changes introduced by the Revised Guidelines is reduction in standard term of power purchase agreement (PPA) from 25 years to 20 years.
