Bhadla Solar Park


Bhadla Solar Park is the world's largest solar park located in India which is spread over a total area of in Bhadla, Phalodi tehsil, Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, India. The park has total capacity of 2,245 MW. The park has witnessed one of the lowest bids for tariff of Rs 2.44 per kWh, which is lowest for solar in India so far. In September 2018 Acme Solar announced that it had commissioned India's cheapest solar power, 200 MW at Bhadla.

Location

Bhadla is a sandy, dry and arid region with an area of about 45 km2. located in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. Bhadla is about 200 km north of Jodhpur and about 320 km west of Jaipur. The region has been described as "almost unlivable" due its climate. Average temperatures in Bhadla hover between 46 and 48 degrees Celsius. Hot winds and sand storms occur frequently. The closest habitation to Bhadla is the village of Bap, located about 50 km away, and the closest urban area - a tehsil town called Phalodi - is 80 km away.

Auctions

Phase I

In the first phase, the NTPC auctioned 420 MW of capacity split into 6 packages of 70 MW each. Finnish company Fortum quoted the lowest tariff of INR 4.34 / kWh. Rising Sun Energy Pvt Ltd and Solairedirect won 2 packages each quoting a price of INR 4.35 / kWh. Yarrow Infrastructure won the remaining package quoting a price of INR 4.36 / kWh.
In December 2016, Solairedirect signed an agreement with Ecoppia, a PV panel cleaning solutions developer, to provide automated cleaning solutions to the project. Due to the park's location in a desert region, it is prone to dust storms. Solairedirect secured a loan of 675 crore from IDBI Bank in February 2017 to help finance the project.

Phase II

auctioned 250 MW capacity in the second phase for which 27 firms submitted bids.

Phase III

auctioned 1000 MW capacity in the third phase on 11 May 2017.
SECI also actioned 800 MW for tariff of Rs 2.44 per kWh. SoftBank has been awarded 500 MW & 200 MW. ACME commissioned the 200 MW capacity in September 2018. HFE commissioned the 100 MW capacity in November 2019. Entire 200 MW capacity is expected to be commissioned by Jan 2020.

Phase IV

auctioned 250 MW capacity in the fourth phase on 9 May 2017.
South Africa's Phelan Energy Group and Avaada Power were awarded 50 MW and 100 MW of capacity respectively. Their bids of 2.62 per kilowatt hour were the lowest tariffs for any solar power project in India. It was also lower than NTPC's average coal power tariff of 3.20 per kilowatt hour. SBG Cleantech, a consortium of Softbank Group, Airtel and Foxconn, was awarded the remaining 100 MW capacity at a rate of 2.63 per kWh.
SECI tendered bids for the remaining 750 MW capacity in June 2017. In this way entire solar park will be completed by December 2018 and with 2055 MW installed capacity, it will be the one of the world's largest solar park.

Commissioning

On 22 February 2017, NTPC announced that it had commissioned 115 MW capacity at the park. An additional 45 MW capacity was commissioned on 8 March, and 25 MW on 18 March. NTPC announced the commissioning of 20 MW capacity at the park on 23 March, and 55 MW on 25 March 2017, taking the total commissioned capacity of the Bhadla park to 260 MW. As of September 2018, 1365 MW have been commissioned.
The remaining 880 MW, to be installed by Hero, Azure, SoftBank Group and ReNew Power, is scheduled to be commissioned by March 2019.
Out of the 880 MW capacity under construction, Azure commissioned 150 MW capacity in April 2019.
When its full capacity is operational, the park will become world's largest fully commissioned PV project, with investment rising to Rs 10,000 crore.

Land issues

Projects aggregating 750 MW under development in the Park are facing delays due to land procurement issues. According to media reports, the entire 750 MW capacity was auctioned in December 2017 and the projects are scheduled to be completed by February 2019.