Exclusive: SECI planning 10 GWh CfD auction to sell power directly on power exchange, says MD Akash Tripathi

Our tender volumes have definitely increased this year. But we are now taking care to sign our Power Sale Agreements (PSAs) and PPAs at the same time, so that we do not carry a large inventory of pending Letters of Award (LoAs). We are working on that. We have already signed PSAs for 6.5 GW this year, and we hope to close somewhere around 8-9 GW by the year-end.
We are also working in the Commercial and Industrial (C&I) segment, where we are looking at (signing) almost 1.5-2 GW of PPAs. That would also give a big momentum to our organisation. On the green molecules side, we have already signed GAPAs (Green Ammonia Purchase Agreements) and GASAs (Green Ammonia Sale Agreements) for almost 700,000 tonnes. And we are looking at future demand for green methanol as well.

At present, we have signed the GAPAs and GASAs with 13 fertiliser companies in India. In the future, we are looking at global demand. In Europe, we have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Power2X (P2X), a Netherlands-based company that works in green molecules. They wish to procure RFNBO-compliant (Renewable Fuel of Non-Biological Origin) green methanol to produce e-SAF, which is an aviation fuel. We are hoping for demand of close to 7,50,000 metric tonnes of green methanol, and we will do the supply aggregation here for that demand.
Similarly, we are working with H2Global and Hintco on a joint auction mechanism. That needs to go to the government for approval of the funding from our side. A kitty fund would be created for it.

Almost 600 million Euros is envisaged. Half of it, 300 million Euros, would come from the Indian government and 300 million Euros would come from the German government.
On the Japan side, we are working with the Japan Organisation for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), so we might soon have some demand from there too.

We are connecting with South Korea and Singapore as well, but there are no immediate leads. We might have something in the near future.

The first step is a joint declaration of intent (JDI). The draft is almost agreed now, so we might sign it very soon. After that, we will move the Cabinet for the fund. And on their side, they will also approach their government.

That EoI was for sourcing CO2, because for green methanol, you need either RFNBO-compliant or biogenic CO2. Once there is a requirement for green methanol supply, we need to source that CO2. We wanted to do some matchmaking between green methanol developers and CO2 sources, so we floated that EoI. The response was very good, a very enthusiastic one, I would say. But in such an EoI, we don’t discover the actual price. That is done through an actual auction.

Once we have clear-cut offtake demand, we will hold the auction and discover the actual price.

We signed the MoU on November 3, so we are hoping it will be very soon. In a couple of weeks or two months’ time, we hope they will be able to indicate clear demand.

GEC-III is a big scheme that envisages evacuation of 135 GW of renewable energy (RE) through the intra-state network. Along with that, there is a storage component of 50 GWh, for which viability gap funding (VGF) of Rs 50 lakh per megawatt-hour (MWh) would be provided. We have recently issued a bid for 16 GWh of peak power, which would use this storage. Under that, BESS needs to be deployed, and it would be charged from the grid. As we sign PPAs for 16 GWh, we will go for the next round of auctions. We will try to implement the entire GEC battery component.

There is the 16 GWh from this (BESS), and tenders already issued are close to 7 or 8 GW. I think 25 GW or so, 20-to-25 GW.

In floating solar, we have already commissioned our own 100 megawatt (MW) project at Getalsud (Ranchi, Jharkhand). Under PM Surya Sarovar Yojana, the target for the country is 5 GW. With respect to that, we are in talks with the governments of Bihar, Karnataka and Odisha. On November 3, we signed an MoU with Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) to develop 300 MW of solar on the Rengali Dam.

Similarly, we are talking with other state governments. We wish to mobilise capex for almost 1 GW, 1-to-1.5 GW, under the PM Surya Sarovar Yojana. Other agencies and state governments would be doing it, but we wish to do at least 1-to-1.5 GW.

We have already commissioned 550 MW of different kinds of RE projects. Around 2 GW is at various stages of construction or tendering. By 2030, our ambition is to have an asset base of 10 GW of our own.

This year, Rs 1,800 crore would actually be required. And next year, it would be close to Rs 3,000 crore. That will only grow.

We have talked with many developers, and the Viability Gap Funding (VGF) requirement there is shooting up. So, we now want to try one more bid in which the capacity would be at one place. Earlier, it was 500 MW off Gujarat coast and 500 MW off Tamil Nadu coast. Now we are saying it could be 1 GW, entirely at one place. We might also have to scale down the capacity a bit, because if more VGF is needed, fewer megawatts may be deployed. We have also talked with some of the oil companies, because there are synergies, like ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) has offshore operations. We are planning to come out with a bid soon, in the next two months.

We are asking them to take that capacity through the auction. Of course, we will not allocate it on a nomination basis. They have been asked to bid in the next round. Let’s see.

No, that is not our expertise. If Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) asks us to do aggregation, we can always do it. But so far, there is no plan on that side.

That is the Dhule one. Now we are thinking of doing a 1-Million Tonne tender. But we need the differential between grey and green to be funded, so we will do it only when that comes. Our tender is ready, and fertiliser companies are also interested. But someone has to pay that money, and it is the government that has to pay. Only when they say yes, will we go ahead.

Yes, of course.

We expect to commission our 1,200 MWh BESS project at Nandyal (in Andhra Pradesh) by March 2027. One half of its capacity is tied up in long-term contracts, while the remaining power will be sold through energy exchanges, which will be a first for SECI.

We are now entering the market through different innovative instruments, such as Contracts for Difference (CfD). We have already floated a pilot CfD of 1 gigawatt-hour (GWh), under which we will supply two hours of peak power on the exchange. We have also curated a 10 GWh CfD proposal and submitted it to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). That would be a large auction. If we do 10 GWh of CfD over the next four years, it would be a major boost, and the power would be pumped directly into the market. We need not wait for distribution companies (DISCOMs) to sign a power purchase agreement (PPA). We will sign the PPA with the developer and sell the power into the market, and that would also deepen our operations.

Under the Green Energy Corridor (GEC) scheme, 50 GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) deployment is envisaged, and a significant portion of that would be done by us. We are diversifying a lot in this way, and we will grow big. Our ambition is to become a Maharatna in the next 8-to-10 years.