Tyre major JK Tyre will invest Rs 800-900 crore at their “all radial“ factory in Chennai by the end of this year.
The investment is part of the company's proposed Rs 1,430 crore expansion of radial capacity at the Chennai plant. JK has already invested around Rs 600 crore at the facility.
Said Arun K Bajoria, president, international operations, JK Tyre: “We are increasing truck and bus radial capacity from 4 lakh units per annum to 12 lakh units per annum and car radial tyre capacity from 2.5 million units per annum to 4.5 million units per annum. This will involve a capex of Rs 1,430 crore of which Rs 600 crore has already been spent.
Toronto-based SkyPower Submits Bid For ` 5.17 Per Unit
India's biggest auction for solar energy brought a further reduction in pric es, with companies such as SkyPower of Canada and Su nEdison Inc of the US, com peting with local firms.
Acme Cleantech Solu tions and Mytrah Energy emerged as the top winners in bids to build 2,000 MW of so lar farms in the southern state of Telangana. Together they reaped 763 MW of con tracts.
The result showed pro gress in PM Narendra Modi's goal to install 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity by 2022 in order to expand India's electricity production while limiting pollution. The coun try currently has 4 GW of so lar capacity, or 4,000 MW. A gi gawatt is what a nuclear reactor produces.
“This year's weighted average bid price is likely to fall below Rs 6 a kilowatt-hour, which would be about 15% lower than the 2014 average,“ said Bharat Bhushan Agrawal, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
SkyPower, which is based in Toronto, submitted the lowest bid, quoting a tariff of Rs 5.17 per kilowatt-hour, which won it a contract to de velop a 200 MW solar farm, Dilip Kumar, superintendent engineer at Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana, said by phone.
Overseas developers entering the Indian market are reducing the cost of solar farms, forcing local companies to lower the rates they're seeking. Acme won contracts to build 436 MW of projects including a 335 MW plant at a tariff Rs 5.82 a kilowatt hour in the utility-scale category and 111 MW at a tariff of Rs 5.88 for smaller “distributed“ units, said the company's founder Manoj Kumar Upadhyay . “Global competition is keeping us on our toes for profitability,“ he said.
Wind energy company Mytrah sealed a deal for 327 megawatts at a tariff of Rs 5.75, of which 150 MW is under the utility-scale category, said Vikram Kailas, the company's managing director.“This win is line with our strategy of diversifying into solar and is a huge responsibility,“ he said.
The projects are supposed to be started within 12 months under terms of the deal. A total of 4,988 megawatts of bids were submitted by 101 developers for the auction, according to solar market intelligence firm Bridge to India.
Some prominent developers who also bid for Telangana auctions include SunEdison, Acme Solar, Adani Power, Reliance Power, Suzlon Energy , Shapoorji Pallonji & Co, Hero Future Energies and Fonroche Energie SAS.
