PTC India to be nodal entity for supply of wind power

PTC India today said it will be the nodal entity for purchase and supply of electricity from wind power projects of 1000 MW auctioned by government.
"PTC India is the nodal entity for supplying power to utilities after entering into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with successful bidders," PTC India said in a statement.
It said that with the wind power auction fixing the tariff at Rs 3.46 per unit for 25 years, the stage is now set for the sector to emerge as a credible renewable power source.
Given India's diverse geography, non-windy states will now be able to get wind based power from states that are rich in wind resources.

The competitively discovered price of Rs 3.46/Unit is an outcome of expected optimisation in project cost, machines efficiency and payment counter party risk, it said.
The projects are expected to be commissioned in 18 months. SECI, which conducted the auction, is expected to allow 1050 MW (in place of originally planned 1000 MW) at the cut off price and issue letter of intend, it said.

PTC India Chairman and Managing Director Deepak Amitabh said: "We expect the share of renewables in overall power generation to steadily rise in the coming years as more and more solar and wind projects start producing power. The competitively priced wind power will encourage consumers to switch to cleaner sources of energy."

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) formulated the scheme for procurement of power from large wind power projects in June last year to enable non-windy states to meet their non-solar RPOs (Rnewable Purchase Obligation) by buying wind power connected to inter-state transmission grid, thereby enlarging the wind power market.
With the increased emphasis on implementation of RPOs and enhanced non-solar RPOs, the policy acts as a catalyst for meeting non solar RPO by the resource-deficient states and also enables long term harnessing of wind resources in the country, it said.
Unlike conventional power where the fuel charges escalate each year, the discovered tariff in the government's auction is constant throughout the life of the projects 25 years.

Looking at the attractive tariffs, some state utilities have already expressed interest in purchasing wind power under this scheme, it said.
With availability of technological tools and policy supports for forecasting based scheduling, this development is expected to bring in a marked shift in the power procurement strategy of the utilities, it added.