Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has floated a tender to enter a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the contractors for procuring silicon wafers for solar cells manufacturing to meet the annual manufacturing capacity of 200 MW. The deadline to submit the bids is 29th October, and the submitted bids will be opened on the same date. The winning bidder will have to submit 10% of the contract value as a performance bank guarantee in ten days from the issue of the letter of the award if the contract value stands above Rs 2.5 million. The wafers for solar cells should be free from surface stains, watermarks, breakage, chips, and pinholes. The entire quantity has to be delivered in four weeks from the date of the purchase order. For participating in the bidding, the bidder should have a manufacturing capacity of 10 million pieces of diamond wire saw (DWS) multi-crystalline silicon wafer or DWS multi-crystalline silicon metal-catalyzed chemical etching (MCCE) wafers or mono-crystalline silicon wafer yearly. The bidder should have supplied a minimum of one DWS multi-crystalline silicon anti-reflective coatings (ARC) wafers or DWS multi-crystalline silicon MCCE wafers or mono-crystalline silicon wafers to a cell manufacturer in the last two years. The original manufacturer should have a well-established testing facility to carry out routine testing of the finished product. According to BHEL, 25% of the tender has been reserved for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), 6.25% have been earmarked for the procurement by MSEs owned by the entrepreneurs of a scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, while 3% has been reserved for women-owned MSEs. If the contractor quotes within the price band of the lowest 15%, the bidder will be eligible to supply 25% of the requirement to the acceptance of the lowest price. In case of delay, the contractor will have to submit 0.5% of the total contract value per week and a maximum of 10% contract value as liquidated damages. Image SourceAlso read: BHEL invites bids to supply 1.5 million multi-crystalline solar cells