Wednesday, November 13, 2013: Reportedly Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) will be inviting bids by March for building a 1-gigawatt solar plant. This will be done in light of the government planning to cut cost of the technology by encouraging large projects.
Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy said that Bharat Heavy, leading a six-company joint venture, plans to hold a contract for the design and construction work in the next four months.
Reportedly, the peak-hour power shortage in the country leads to power shortage of as high as 25 per cent in select states. And these large scale renewable projects will offer a solution to the ongoing issue.
We recently reported about the proposals to build five ultra-mega renewable parks of 18 gigawatts capacity over the next 10 years, which will expand India’s installed solar capacity ninefold. This was reported by Bloomberg News first.
Kapoor added, “The main objective is to bring down the price of solar power. We want to bring it to about 5.5 rupees (8.6 cents) a kilowatt-hour so that it’s competitive with any other source of power.”
Kapoor further added, “Bharat Heavy’s planned tender will award a contract for the first gigawatt of a proposed 4-gigawatt solar park at Sambhar, Rajasthan state. The remaining capacity will later be auctioned in 500-megawatt batches to non-state developer.”
A 4.7-gigawatt renewable park is being planned separately in Kharaghoda, Gujarat state, which would offer 700 megawatts of wind power. Land has been acquired for both the parks from state-run Hindustan Salts Ltd.
