"This will be because of the unwillingness of state discoms to sign long-term purchase agreements at higher feed in tariffs and unpreparedness on their part to come out with auctions in a big way in the near term. However, auctions can pick up from FY19," it said.Ind-Ra further said though the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has come up with detailed policies on repowering, hybrid and offshore wind power projects in the past, ground challenges and bottlenecks hinder a speedy progress on these fronts. "Besides, there can be savings on the land and evacuation fronts. However, infrastructure bottlenecks are preventing hybridisation of the existing wind power plants, while the same can be planned for upcoming plants. "According to Ind-Ra, hybrid plants can offer about one percentage point higher returns than an individual wind or solar power plant without trackers.Given the marginal nature of incremental returns, industry players prefer to wait and watch before going up for the same in a big way.

Source: Economic Times July 25, 2017 11:15 UTC