Adani Green Energy and Azure Power have won the first of its kind manufacturing-linked solar tender floated by the Solar Energy Corporation of India’s (SECI) for 7 GW of solar capacity.

Adani and Azure both won the bid to develop 2,000 MW of projects with 500 MW of manufacturing capacity. The winning tariff quoted by both the companies was ₹2.92 (~$0.04)/kWh. The ceiling tariff for this tender was fixed at ₹2.93 ($0.041)/kWh.

The tender also had a greenshoe option, where the companies could opt for an additional capacity to both develop and manufacture. Adani, under the greenshoe option, has offered an additional capacity of 1,500 MW solar cell and module manufacturing and 6 GW generation. With this, Adani’s total allocation comes to 2,000 MW of solar cell and module manufacturing and 8 GW of generation capacity.

Azure’s spokesperson also confirmed that they had taken the greenshoe option for an additional capacity of 500 MW manufacturing and 2 GW generation. With this, the total allocation for Azure comes to 1,000 MW of cell and module manufacturing and 4 GW of generation capacity.

Azure’s investor presentation says that they are not entering into manufacturing but have partnered with Waaree Energies for 500 MWs and have closed discussions with another manufacturer for the other 500 MWs.

For both the companies, the ratio after the Greenshoe option remains the same at 1:4.

When Mercom contacted SECI, an official confirmed that the greenshoe option had been considered for both the companies but the Letter of Intent has not yet been awarded.

In November 2019, Mercom reported that SECI had received a good response for its 7 GW solar tender that has been linked with a manufacturing component. The tender was oversubscribed by 1,000 MW.

Adani Green Energy had submitted its bid for 4 GW of solar projects and 1 GW of manufacturing component, followed by Azure and Navyug, which submitted bids for 2 GW of projects each.

This SECI tender linked with a manufacturing component was one of its kind in India, and over the past few months, the tender has faced many obstacles, twists, turns, and multiple deadline extensions. SECI amended various clauses of this tender to make it appealing for the interested developers.

Image credit: Renovalia Energy