Page 9 - AsiaElec Week 28

AsiaElec RENEWABLES AsiaElec
issued a tender for 1GW of grid-connected solar capacity under Phase-II Tranche-I of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) programme, to be developed across the country. e same company also issued a separate 1-GW tender open only to government organisations.
Gujarat state government-run Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) retendered two solar projects for a total capacity of 950MW to be developed in the state’s solar parks.
This included 750MW at the 1,000MW Dholera Solar Park with a tari ceiling INR2.75 ($0.040) per kWh. e second project was for 200MW at the 700MW Raghanesda Solar Park.
Completed auctions in June resulted in tari s of just $0.04 per kWh. Four project developers
– NTPC (160MW), Mahindra Susten (200MW), Hero Future Energies (250MW) and Azure Power (70MW) – bid INR2.50 ($0.0359) per kWh for SECI’s tender for up to 750MW of capacity in Rajasthan.
Ayana Renewables bid INR2.54 ($0.0366) per kWh for 300MW of SECI’s 1.2-GW (Tranche-IV) ISTS-connected solar projects, which were tendered in February.
e Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) forecasts that 30GW of solar is expected to be tendered in the scal year from April 2019 to March 2020.
e rush of new tenders seen in June means that around 14GW of this target has been met a er three months of the scal year.™
POLICY
Pakistan central bank urges power subsidy cuts
e State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has said that with pressures building on the country’s balance of payments and scal resources, it has become imperative for the government to reduce the ‘signi cant’ level of power subsidies.
However, chronic governance issues
in state-owned Discos and rising capacity payments mean that with the reduction in power subsidies, it will be challenging for the government to achieve the objective of
NEWS IN BRIEF
providing cheap electricity to domestic users, the SBP said in its third quarterly “ e State of Economy Pakistan” report issued on Monday.
A special section on power tari s in Pakistan has been added to the report to explain the process of power tari determination in the country.
e report said that the investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure that is currently underway would be crucial going forward in terms of reducing T&D losses.
However, the capacity payments are likely to grow over the next 5-6 years, as a number of ongoing power projects mostly coal and renewables come online and, in the absence of a commensurate growth in demand amidst
a challenging macroeconomic environment, augment the capacity surplus situation in the country.
Chine probes bitcoin power theft
Police in eastern China have busted a ring of illicit bitcoin miners who stole nearly CNY20m ($3m) worth of electricity to generate the digital currency, prompting a local power company to tip o investigators, the authorities said.
A decentralised virtual currency, bitcoin can be produced or “mined” by banks of
Week 28 16 •July•2019
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