Abhijeet Naukh CSP Solar Plant Phase I

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In November 2010, Corporate Ispat Alloys Limited (CIAL), a subsidiary of Abhijeet Group),was awarded the license for setting up a 50MW solar thermal power project at Naukh village, Pokhran Tehsil, Jaisalmer District of Rajasthan under the Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission (JNNSM) Phase-I of the scheme. Under the JNNSM the total aggregated capacity of grid connected Solar Projects in Phase-1 was expected to be 1000 MW. The deployment of Solar PV and Solar Thermal projects would be in the ratio of 50:50. CIAL had acquired land for the project. The output from the project would be fed to the northern grid of India. CIAL had entered into a Technology agreement with Ener-T International Limited (Israel), one of the leading Technology and Engineering providers for Solar Thermal Projects, for providing the Solar Technology to this project. Shriram EPC Limited will execute the EPC work in partnership with ENER-T International Limited. The order for the turbines had been placed on Siemens, Sweden. The parabolic mirrors were bought from Rio Glass of Spain. The ‘heat transfer fluid' receivers would be supplied by Siemens, Israel, while Solutia (US) would supply the 1200-tonnes of the fluid. Hyspan (US) would supply the ‘ball joints',another critical component of CSP plant. CIAL had taken the approval from Powergrid for interconnection with the nearest substation of Powergrid at the volatage level of 33kV or above. The JNNSM mission had designated NTPC’s Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited (NVVN) as the nodal agency for procurement of solar power. On 18th August 2010, NVVN invited RFQs from interested developers to develop 150 MW solar PV projects with a capacity of 5 MW each, and 500 MW solar thermal projects with a minimum capacity of 5 MW and maximum of 100 MW each. NVVN received 418 RFQ responses on September 24, 2010 from both PV and solar thermal project developers (343 applications for solar PV,55 for solar thermal projects, and 5 for combined thermal and PV projects). As the total capacity of the shortlisted projects were in excess of the approved capacity of 150 MW Solar PV Projects and 500 MW Solar Thermal Projects, bidders were required to submit proposals offering maximum discount on the CERC (Central Regulator) approved applicable tariff for grid connected solar power projects for FY 2010-11 - a reverse bidding auction process. The last date for the submission of proposal was November 16, 2010. For Solar Thermal projects, NVVN received 66 bids from project developers indicating discounts offered by each over CERC determined tariff of INR 15.31/kWh. Majority of the bids were below 300 paise. There were 17 bids which offered zero discount. Since, the target allocation for solar thermal projects was 500 MW, only the top 8 discounts were finally selected to set up solar power projects. The cutoff discount was 297paise. Corporate Ispat Alloys Limited (CIAL) won the project quoting a tariff of INR 12.24/kWh (a discount of 307 paise). In January 2011, Corporate Ispat Alloys Limited (CIAL) had entered into a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement with NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), which was the the nodal agency to purchase solar power generated by independent solar power producers, under JNNSM. JNNSM provided for a scheme of "bundling" relatively expensive solar power with cheaper power from the unallocated quota of the Government of India out of the capacity of the NTPC based coal stations.This cheaper bundled power would then be sold to state power distribution companies at the CERC regulated price. This would bring down the gap between the average cost of power and sales price of power of the state Discom. The total capacity of 50MW was also eligible for carbon credits. CIAL would pass on the gross benefits of CDM to the distribution licensee (NVVN) in the following manner - (a) 100% of the gross proceeds to be retained by CIAL in the 1st year after the date of COD, (b) in the 2nd year, the share of NVVN would be 10% which would be progressi