Indian Solar Auction Sees Foreign Developers Mostly Shut Out

India’s latest offering of solar capacity saw just one foreign bidder among the winners, a reversal of previous auctions when outsiders dominated, winning the right to supply clean power at record-low rates deemed by domestic developers as unrealistic.

Of the local players, RattanIndia Power Ltd., Adani Enterprises Ltd., Tata Power Co., Acme Group and ReNew Power Ventures Pvt. won 400 megawatts of the 500 megawatts of capacity auctioned off Tuesday in the south Indian state of Karnataka, Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at the ministry of new and renewable energy, said in a phone interview. Fortum OYJ of Finland was the sole foreign winner, securing 100 megawatts of capacity.

The lack of foreign winners is particularly notable in light of previous auctions when SunEdison Inc., the embattled renewable-energy company facing potential technical defaults on at least $1.4 billion of loans and credit facilities, was among the winners. Inching closer to bankruptcy, SunEdison is now seeking to sell as much as 1 gigawatt of unfinished projects in the Asian nation, according to people familiar with the matter. Read More…