With reduction in prices of solar equipment, project developers are bidding aggressively for solar projects

India: Owing to the decline in the solar prices, the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has lowered its base tariff from INR5.45 per kWH to INR4.43 per kWH for the Uttar Pradesh solar projects which has drawn many bidders. RattanIndia Solar 2 Ltd and the France-based company, SolaireDirect won 50MW Allahabad solar park and 75MW Mirzapur park respectively through this bidding. These companies would be eligible for viability gap funding (VGF), which comes around to be INR75 lakh per MW for the Allahabad park and INR74.3 per MW for the Mirzapur park.

TechSci Research depicts that with the Government target to achieve 100,000MW of solar power by 2022 and with policies that promotes local manufacturing through subsidies and anti-dumping duties will support large scale production of equipment. Prices of solar panels declined by 19% in 2013 and by 12% in 2014 due to technology advancements and improvements in manufacturing processes, thereby making them cheaper. As a result, the project developers are bidding aggressively for solar projects.

According to released report of TechSci Research “India Solar Power Equipment Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2020”, the solar power equipment market in India is projected to surpass USD4 billion by 2020. Rising government investments in the sector, increasing technological advancements, growing environmental concerns, government support in the form of favorable policies, subsidies and tax incentives are expected have a significant positive impact on the market in the ensuing years.