Zebasolar wins 10 MW Gujarat power station bid

Bedminster, N.J.-based solar investor and developer Zebasolar said today its Indian subsidiary won a bid to build a 10 megawatt solar photovoltaic power station in Gujarat.

The Indian unit, an 85 percent subsidiary of the U.S. company, said it plans to make a €35 million ($49.2 million) investment in the Gujarat PV Project, which is expected to have an annual power production of 16.37 million kilowatt hours, and a franchised operation term of 25 years. The project is expected to use ground-mounted PV tracker panels.

The subsidiary, located in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, is in the process of developing and financing PV projects with a total capacity of more than 25 MW in 2009, which are fully approved, out of 500 MW it has applications out for in India.

Zebasolar’s Indian unit said it is currently setting up a Gujarat joint venture company for the project and is confirming the engineering, procurement and construction contract.

Construction is planned to begin in the next five months, with the power station coming online in mid-2010.

In late January 2009, the Gujarat State Energy Agency planned an open tender for on-grid electricity price and technical solutions. About 70 international and domestic energy players submitted applications, with the bids totaling more than 5,400 MW.

Zebasolar’s win is in line with India’s National Solar Mission, approved last week by the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change. The mission is aimed at expanding India's solar capacity from the current 3 MW to 20 GW by 2020 and 200 GW by 2050, at a cost of $20 billion to implement the 30-year scheme (see India’s new climate plan aims to set 20 GW solar goal).

Mumbai-based Tata Power, India's largest private power utility and part of the Tata Group, said in January that it was exploring the possibility of building two 5-MW renewable energy power plants in Gujarat, using geothermal or solar technology (see Tata Power plans geothermal, solar for Gujarat).