On 26 June 2020 AURES II research project and the Strommarkttreffen network jointly organised a webinar on renewable energy auctions. The speakers presented how countries, mainly in Europe, test new tender design approaches to reflect changing policy objectives and opportunities. These include, for instance, increasing the market compatibility of renewable energy support, procuring renewables and storage jointly, promoting energy communities, and enabling market clearing in “zero-subsidy” situations. Amongst the speakers was Mr. Tobias Winter, Indo-German Energy Forum (IGEF-SO), who gave a brief talk on India’s first 24/7 renewable energy tender linking renewables with energy storage solutions. India has great potential to generate electricity from solar and wind. “Somewhere in India the sun is always shining,” said Mr. Winter. With 365 days of sunshine India does not rely on seasonal storages and mainly only has to store solar power for the same upcoming evening and night. In most Indian states the electricity demand is highest at night, especially during the summer months, when air conditioners are being used. This is when sunlight is not available, a reason why coal fired power plants are still being planned in India. To make renewable energy more attractive for utilities, recently the Government decided to introduce 24/7 hour tenders and split them into peak-time tariffs and off-peak time tariffs. Selected bidders can now generate from solar, wind or hybrid power and couple those solutions with any storage technology to make renewable energy available during peak demand times at night. First, tender results have shown that the mixed price calculation with higher tariffs at night and lowest solar and wind tariffs during the day is competitive with coal. The mixed prices are the same price or even below the cost for power from new coal.

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