The Infinia PPA Tariff Index
A developer's deck shows you savings against the grid. It almost never shows you whether the tariff itself is fair. This is the benchmark every CFO should check first — built from India's public auction data and the 1.6 GW of PPAs we've advised on, always from the buy-side.
India's competitive auctions set a public floor for every PPA structure. If your quote sits well above your structure's benchmark, that gap isn't your savings — it's the developer's margin.
| PPA structure | Recent discovered tariff | Auction / order (dated) |
|---|---|---|
| Solar (ISTS) | ₹2.86/kWh | SECI 2 GW solar + storage e-auction, 16 Oct 20251 |
| Wind-Solar Hybrid | ₹3.25/kWh | SECI Tranche IX (600 MW), CERC-adopted 13 Jun 20252 |
| Solar + 4-hr Storage | ₹3.52/kWh | SECI 2 GW solar / 1 GW·4 GWh ESS, CERC 22 Oct 20253 |
| FDRE (firm 24×7 RE) | ₹4.98/kWh | SECI FDRE Tranche IV (630 MW), CERC 10 Mar 20254 |
| Round-the-Clock RE | ₹5.06/kWh | SECI RTC-IV (420 MW), CERC 22 Nov 20255 |
These are pan-India discovered tariffs — the price the most competitive developers accepted at auction. Your landed cost adds state open-access charges (below). The Solar (ISTS) figure includes mandatory co-located storage; a pure-solar block clears lower (~₹2.5–2.6). Full sources at the foot of this page.
Storage is now part of the band
Grid-scale battery storage is repricing fast. Across the five most recent BESS tenders — over 3,600 MWh awarded — winning bids ran from ₹2.08 L to ₹4.57 L per MW/month, with VGF driving roughly a 20% tariff drop. That spread is why a “solar + storage” quote needs benchmarking, not trust.
A real one we were asked: “Is ₹3.66 too high for a solar-wind hybrid?” The Tranche IX benchmark is ₹3.25. Here's what ₹0.41 over the band costs across a 25-year PPA.
Above the band by ₹0.41/kWh
₹4.1 Cr / year
≈ ₹103 Cr over a 25-year PPA — money that leaves with the developer, not your P&L.
Indicative, using the Delay-LD convention ₹Cr/yr = MU × ₹-gap × 0.1. A real assessment prices in escalation, ToD, and your actual landed cost.
Open-access charges and banking rules change every tariff year — and a single regulatory order can quietly cut the savings a developer promised you. Two recent ones we track:
Source: MERC MSEDCL MYT Order, 28 Mar 2025.6
Sources: TNERC GEOA Regs notified 18 Sep 2025; TN FY26 tariff order eff. 1 Jul 2025.7
Open-access rules, banking windows and wheeling charges are set state-by-state — so a tariff that looks competitive in one state can quietly underperform in another. A few we track closely:
Source: TNERC Green Energy Open Access Regulation, announced 18 Sep 2025.7
Source: Telangana Clean & Green Energy Policy (66 GW by 2034-35); landed cost varies by state open-access charges — we model it per PPA.8
Source: Rajasthan FY 2025-26 Tariff Order.9
Karnataka, Gujarat and other states each carry their own banking and wheeling rules — we hold a landed-cost view for every state where we've advised a PPA. Ask for your state →
Gaurav walks through the exact PPA clauses that quietly erode a “fair” tariff — and how a buy-side advisor negotiates each one before you sign.
A developer's deck quietly assumes the plant comes online on time. They often don't. We run a clause-grounded damages model on your executed PPA — not the term sheet — so you know your exposure to the rupee, with every figure cited to a clause.
Built on Delay-LD (Cl. 3.4.2), Schedule VI termination payment, and the SSSHA equity put (Cl. 10.3.3). Engagement details anonymised; figures rounded to protect client confidentiality.
Benchmark tariffs are pan-India auction prices adopted by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC). State charges are from the relevant State Commission orders. We publish only figures we can cite to a dated, named source. Where a number is a component (not a landed cost) or carries lower confidence, we say so.
Cite this
The Infinia PPA Tariff Index, Infinia Solar, 2026. infiniasolar.com/infinia-ppa-index.html
Reviewed by
Gaurav Kawatra, Founder, Infinia Solar — buy-side renewable-energy advisory. 1.6 GW advised across 150+ PPAs and 65+ corporates.
Send us the tariff you've been quoted — or your last energy bill. In 48 hours we'll tell you where it sits against the band, and what the fine print is really costing you. No developer pays us. You do. That's the point.
Run my PPA →The Decode Archive
48 real negotiations behind the PPA Index — the tariff traps, IRR delusions and clause-level risks, decoded.
Browse all 48 decodes →