Friday, September 05, 2014: Fuel supply shortage at thermal power plants has led to widespread load shedding across many states in India. Some private power producers have even shut down production in several states. In South India power cuts and load shedding have become daily affairs. At this point of time, the newest Indian state Telangana has issued a large solar power tender to bridge the gap between power supply and demand.
A tender to install 500MW solar power capacity has been issued by the state government. The projects will be allocated through reverse bidding and winners of contracts will be announced by September end. After the announcement of the winners names and all agreements are signed, the project developers will have just 10 months to commission their projects. Telangana government has urged the central government for assistance in power supply. Media reports say that the state is in need of about 4000MW of demand every day, though only 3500-3600MW can be arranged by the state. So the government is looking forward to large solar projects to meet this crisis.
Ever since the state division, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been locked into a battle to attract new investors in the renewable energy sector. Before the division happened, a 1000MW solar power project was planned which is located in a district which is situated inside the borders of Telangana now. The southern states in India, where demand for power in increasing everyday, is connected to the rest of the country through several power transmission lines. It leads to huge congestion in power transmission. So, though there is surplus power in the states, there is a huge lack of adequate transmission capacity and prices are also too high.
The southern states are now home to several gas-fired power plants which are sitting idle for months. Though the competition between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, provided it remains healthy, is a bliss to the solar power project developers and also the entire solar power sector in India.
