India's Maharashtra state, home to the country's financial capital of Mumbai, will avoid the reverse-bidding process used in the first national solar auction that led to "unbankable" projects, an official said.
"It won't be reverse-bidding," H.M. Kulkarni, general manager at the Maharashtra Energy Development Agency, said in an interview in Mumbai today. "We've seen how that has led to some issues with aggressive bids and that projects aren’t bankable."
The agency has submitted a draft solar power policy to the state government which targets the development of 500 megawatts of solar power capacity over three years, he said.
The policy is expected to be approved within a month or two, he said.
India's National Solar Mission program, which aims to build 20,000 megawatts of sun-powered plants by 2022, completed its first auction last year. Project developers offering to sell the solar power to be produced at the lowest rates won licenses to build plants in a process known as reverse bidding.
Kulkarni spoke on the sidelines of Renewable Markets India's Global Solar Investment Summit in Mumbai.
