India's SECI in new solar auction drive as green energy target beckons

• The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has introduced tenders for 1.2GW of PV projects and 1.2GW of solar-wind hybrid projects on 5 December.

Developers have until 16 December to bid for the solar contracts and 20 December for those regarding the solar-wind hybrids. Winning bidders will sign 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs).

The tender duo is the latest of a flurry over the past few months as India's 175GW-by-2022 renewables target creeps closer. This includes the nation's biggest utility NTPC issuing a tender for 923MW of domestic-content solar and also a 500MW of solar energy EPC capacity in December, not long after it tendered 1GW of grid-connected solar capacity in late September. Additionally in September, SECI allocated 922.4MW of a 2GW tender, in which NTPC was the greatest winner.

The tender bonanza is meant to assist India move towards its ambitious 175GW renewables energy goal – a goalpost some analysts have derided as too ambitious. In early October, Mumbai-headquartered consultancy CRISIL cautioned India's ""enduring policy doubt and tariff glitches"" could observe renewable capacity increase only to 104GW by 2022, 42% short of the government's 175GW goal.

The nation had 82.58GW in installed renewables throughout the country in September 2019.