JSW Renew Energy Five wins SECI's 1 GWh standalone BESS tender

JSW Renew Energy Five Ltd., a special purpose vehicle of JSW Energy, on Friday (Aug. 26) won the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) auction to set up a 500MW/1000 MWh standalone BESS (battery energy storage system) project in India. 

The auction witnessed neck-to-neck e-reverse bidding which began on Thursday afternoon (Aug. 25) and continued past midnight (Aug. 26)  with JSW Renew Energy Five emerging as the winner. The company won the entire capacity for the quoted value of INR 10,83,500. 

Few of the other companies competing for the tender included ACME Barmer Solar Pvt Ltd., Hartree Partners Singapore Pte Ltd, Eden Renewable Vavin Pvt Ltd., Sterlite Power Transmission Ltd., NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd., Renew Solar Power Pvt Ltd., Azure Power Sixty Three Pvt Ltd.

The PSU under the aegis of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) came out with an initial bid in October 2021, which was later amended in March 2022, and finally, the bids were submitted on July 2022. 

As per the Rfs, the total capacity to be set up is 1000 MWh (500 MW x 2hrs), which will constitute two projects of 500 MWh (250 MW x 2 hrs) capacity each. The projects will be installed in the vicinity of the Fatehgarh-III Grid-Substation of the ISTS network, in the State of Rajasthan. The buying entities will be offered the storage capacity to charge and discharge the same daily through RE power, as per their energy shifting requirements.

Further, the term of the project will be 12 years and the projects will be set up on a "Build-Own-Operate" basis, with the connectivity and necessary permissions being under the scope of the project developer. The CTU will provide land for the projects to the developers on a right-to-use basis. 

SECI is the implementing agency of this tender and will be procuring capacity on behalf of the buying entities, charging a facilitation fee in the form of a trading margin. The project is scheduled to be commissioned 18 months from the date of signing of the Battery Energy Storage Purchase Agreement (BESPA).

The tender marks the first tranche of the Government's immediate target of setting up 4000 MWh of Battery Storage Capacity as part of achieving increased penetration of RE in the national grid. 

India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), India's leading industry alliance on advancing energy storage, electric mobility, and green hydrogen technology has projected that India will require 160GWh of energy storage capacity by 2030.