Indian giga-scale battery tender sets sub-$2,000 monthly price

Rajasthan’s viability gap funding (VGF)-backed 1 GW/2 GWh standalone BESS tender has yielded a record-low tariff of INR 1.775 lakh ($1,999.36) per megawatt, per month. That represented a 15% drop from the previous lowest tariff, of INR 2.08 lakh/MW/month, set in an Andhra Pradesh tender with 30% VGF support.

The tender, issued by Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Ltd under the second VGF scheme, sought bids for the development of 1 GW/2 GWh of standalone BESS projects. It witnessed participation by 50 bidders vying for the capacity.

“This bid is in no ways comparable to earlier bid results. For some time we genuinely believed that a higher tariff [would] be discovered in this tender, with the conditions prevailing, but with 50 bidders participating in the tender, anything could have been possible! And that turned [out to be] true,” said Debmalya Sen, president of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). “This comes with INR 9 lakh per megawatt-hour less VGF support (INR 18 lakh/MWh) with land under [the] developer[‘s] scope connected to 220 kV, and under an environment where BESS costs [have] been constant over a couple of months, with fear of cost rising!”

New entrants

Some 11 companies emerged as winners, most of them new entrants to the BESS space. The awarded capacities ranged between 50 MW/100 MWh and 200 MW/400 MWh.

The lowest discovered price, of INR 1.775 lakh/MW/month, was quoted by Stockwell Solar (200 MW/400 MWh); Oswal Cables (100 MW/200 MWh); Patanjali Renewables (100 MW/200 MWh); Micromax Informatics (50 MW/100 MWh); and RCRS Innovations (50 MW/100 MWh).

The remaining capacity was allocated at a marginally higher price of INR 1.785 lakh/MW/month to Viviana Power Tech (100 MW/200 MWh); Galaxy Mining and Royalties (100 MW/200 MWh); Manda Projects (100 MW/200 MWh); Mineralia Impex (50 MW/100 MWh); Onward Solar (100 MW/200 MWh); and S T Electricals (50 MW/100 MWh).

From pv magazine India.