Solar power tariff at record low of Rs4.34 per unit: Piyush Goyal

New Delhi: Government is set to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clean energy vision, with solar power tariff hitting a record low Rs4.34 a unit, power and coal minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said.

“Through transparent auctions with a ready provision of land, transmission and the like, solar tariffs have come down below thermal power cost,” Goyal said in a tweet. “We are moving rapidly towards realising the clean energy vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” Goyal tweeted further.

He congratulated Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje on “achieving the lowest-ever Indian solar tariff of Rs4.34 per unit through reverse auction”.

The solar power tariff fell to an all-time low, with Finland-based energy firm Fortum Finnsurya Energy quoting Rs4.34 to bag the mandate to set up a 70 MW solar plant under NTPC’s Bhadla Solar Park tender. “This (Rs4.34 a unit) is the lowest solar tariff so far in India. This has happened because of confidence in the balance sheet of NTPC and solar parks that come with all clearances and confidence in the market,” New and Renewable Energy joint secretary Tarun Kapoor told PTI.

NTPC on Monday conducted the reverse bidding for 420 MW solar power projects to be set up at the Bhadla Solar Park-II near Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

In November last year, the solar power tariff had slid to an all-time low of Rs4.63 following aggressive bidding by the US-based SunEdison, the world’s biggest developer of renewable energy power plants.

The other winners included Rising Sun Energy Pvt Ltd (two blocks for Rs4.35 a unit), Solairedirect (two blocks for Rs4.35 a unit) and Yarrow Infrastructure (one block for Rs4.36).

“Based on the general procedure, a letter of intent (LoI) shall be issued within 15 days from the completion of the reverse auction and PPA shall be signed within 30 days after the LoI is issued,” Fortum India MD Sanjay Aggarwal said in a statement.

Fortum India will be in a position to disclose details once the company signs the PPA with a relevant authority in India, the company said.

“RattanIndia Solar through its company Yarrow Infrastructure Ltd, part of the RattanIndia group, won solar project of 70 MW capacity at a tariff of Rs4.36/kWh in reverse e-auction conducted by National Thermal Power Limited (NTPC) on 18 January 2016,” the company said in a statement.

The online reverse process for the six projects with a combined capacity of 420 MW saw aggressive bidding, the company said.

“The central government has set a target of 100 GW of solar power generation by 2020 along with bringing in grid parity and we are fully committed and contributing to achieving this ambitious goal,” RattanIndia Solar CEO Anjali Rattan Nashier said.

SunEdison had won a bid to sell solar power from a 500 megawatt plant in Andhra Pradesh under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission at Rs4.63 per kilowatt-hour (kwh or unit). SunEdison had offered tariff lower than that of SoftBank Group Corp of Japan and Chinese solar productmaker Trina Solar Ltd in the auction, industry sources said.