Solarpack has agreed to sell the output of its Gorbea solar project in Rajasthan to the Solar Energy Corporation of India for 25 years. The tariff is $31.87 per MWh. In a market where most contracts are announced without a price, that number is unusually visible. The question is what it buys, and how it compares with the few other prices on record.
Key takeaways
- Solarpack, now Zelestra, announced on 18 January 2024 a 25-year PPA with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) for the 435 MWdc Gorbea solar photovoltaic project in Rajasthan.
- Solarpack's PPA with SECI for the Gorbea solar project carries a tariff of $31.87 per MWh.
- Under the Gorbea PPA, Solarpack will supply SECI with 755 GWh of clean energy a year starting in 2025.
- Gorbea is expected to generate the equivalent of the annual consumption of more than 128,000 Indian households and to avoid about 13.3 million tons of carbon emissions over its lifetime.
- With Gorbea added to its operating and awarded projects, Solarpack's portfolio in India approaches 1 GW.
Who is Solarpack actually selling to?
A government-owned intermediary rather than a corporate buyer. The Solar Energy Corporation of India, or SECI, runs competitive tenders for renewable capacity, signs long-term purchase agreements with the winning developers, and sells the power on to state distribution companies. For a developer, a SECI contract means a central counterparty and a fixed tariff for the life of the agreement.
The PPA supports SECI's stated goal of becoming 100 percent renewable by 2030. For Solarpack, the company said the signing shows its ability to compete in delivering clean energy globally. The supplier has since been renamed: Leap records it as Zelestra, formerly Solarpack Corporacion Tecnologica.
The structure explains the length. Twenty-five years is the standard term in this market rather than an exception, and it matches the operating life a utility-scale solar plant is financed against.
What does 755 GWh a year say about the plant?
It says Gorbea is expected to run at a little under 20 percent of its rated capacity across the year, measured against its panel rating. Gorbea's capacity is stated as 435 MWdc, the combined rating of its panels. A plant of that size running flat out every hour of a year would produce about 3,811 GWh. The contracted 755 GWh is about 19.8 percent of that figure.
That ratio is called the capacity factor, the share of theoretical maximum output a plant actually delivers. For solar, it is set by sunshine hours, panel orientation and whether the panels track the sun.
The capacity factor also sets the revenue. At $31.87 per MWh, 755 GWh a year is worth about $24 million in annual sales. Over 25 years that is roughly $600 million in nominal terms. Leap does not record whether the tariff escalates, so the flat figure is the only one the record supports.
How does Gorbea's tariff compare?
It sits slightly above the only other priced SECI solar contract in Leap from the same period. In December 2023, Eden Renewables India signed a 300 MW solar PPA with SECI at $31.18 per MWh. Gorbea's tariff is $0.69 per MWh higher, a premium of about 2.2 percent.
Two prices do not make a curve. They do show that tariffs on SECI solar contracts signed a month apart landed within a narrow band of each other, at a little over $31 per MWh. The difference between them is small enough to come down to site, timing or tender design rather than any change in the market.
Enerdatics records seven solar PPAs signed with SECI between July 2023 and June 2024, totalling about 3,498 MW. Six of the seven run for 25 years, and the seventh does not disclose a term. Only two of the seven disclose a tariff: Gorbea's and Eden's. Adani Green Energy accounts for three of the contracts and about 2,513 MW, or roughly 72 percent of the capacity, none of it priced in Leap's records.
That distribution is the real finding. SECI contracts are long, large and concentrated in a few hands, and their prices are mostly invisible. Gorbea is one of the few that puts a number on the table.
What does the deal signal for Indian solar?
It signals that the central tender model continues to set the reference price for utility-scale solar in India, and that the reference price is very low. A tariff a little over $31 per MWh, fixed for 25 years, leaves developers little room for cost overruns. Winning depends on cheap capital, efficient procurement and sites with strong sunshine.
It also shows how foreign developers compete. Solarpack, a Spanish company, has built an Indian portfolio that it says approaches 1 GW, including operating and awarded projects. That scale gives it a base from which to bid repeatedly in a market where tenders are frequent and margins thin.
The contracted platforms behind these tenders have become tradeable assets in their own right. Buyers of operating Indian solar portfolios are paying for exactly the kind of long-term contracted revenue a SECI PPA provides. Meanwhile, newer tender designs are moving beyond plain solar, with firm and dispatchable projects pairing solar with batteries to deliver power when it is needed. Those contracts carry higher tariffs because they promise more. Gorbea is the simpler product: daytime solar at a little over $31 per MWh, fixed for a quarter of a century.
Frequently asked questions
What is the tariff in Solarpack's Gorbea PPA with SECI? The tariff is $31.87 per MWh for 25 years.
How much power will the Gorbea solar project supply? Gorbea will supply 755 GWh a year to SECI from 2025, from 435 MWdc of solar capacity in Rajasthan.
How does Gorbea compare with other SECI solar contracts? Of seven SECI solar PPAs Enerdatics records between July 2023 and June 2024, only Gorbea and a 300 MW Eden Renewables India contract at $31.18 per MWh disclose a tariff. Gorbea's is about 2.2 percent higher.
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