The Solar Revolution in India

Indian solar prices have made a new record low at just 7 cents/kWh. This happened after intense competition led to prices falling below the Rs 5/kWh threshold, after SunEdison managed to win all 500 MW of capacity in a tender put out by India’s largest utility NTPC. Recently Sky Power created immense buzz by bidding Rs 5.05/kWh in a recent state tender. At that time, analysts and other companies had found the bid to be absurdly low, saying it was almost impossible to make money at that price point. However, this low price has seen another 10% cut in just 3 months, with SunEdison managing to beat almost 27 competitors most of which had put in below Rs 5/kWh prices in the second round of bidding. The first round of bidding in the electronic auction saw prices of Rs 5.25-6/kWh and saw bidders like Trina and Softbank being aggressive. However, SunEdison won the second round with the lowest price amongst all bidders. Note SunEdison has been facing problems globally, as its aggressive renewable energy expansion has come under attack from investors concerned about its debt issues. This win will give some relief to SunEdison investors to see that the company is not retrenching from one of the world’s largest solar markets.

Read advantages of Solar Power & disadvantages of coal generated power.

Solar prices are now competing with new coal power plants being set up in India, where recently prices have been discovered in the same range. Thermal power plants face huge issues in getting coal as well as getting environmental clearances these days. This raises the costs for these plants even though domestic coal prices are quite low. Solar power prices are going to put immense pressure going forward, as their costs continue to decline by 5-10% each year. It is only a matter of time before the delta between solar and coal prices become so big, that no more coal power plants are built again. The coal age is coming to an end extremely fast. It was only around 250 years ago that the Industrial Revolution started with the advent of steam engines powered by coal. Now it is coming to an end with the start of the Solar Revolution.