Indian Railways floats tenders for 740 MW of solar projects

The Railway Energy Management Company (REMCL), a joint venture of the Indian Railways and Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RITES), has invited tenders for developing a 740 MW ground-mount solar project on vacant railway lands. The last date to submit the tenders is August 26, and it will be opened on the same day. Interested bidders will have to submit Rs 4,00,000 per MW as an earnest money deposit. Successful bidders will have to provide Rs 8,00,000 per MW as the performance bank guarantee. The zonal railways will enter into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the successful bidder for 25 years from the date as per PPA provisions. The tariff valued by the bidder will include all duties, levies, statutory taxes, and cess amid others. Only operational and commercially built technologies must be used to reduce the technological risk and to deliver the timely commissioning of the projects. The duty of getting connectivity with the transmission system controlled by the state transmission utility or the central transmission utility, as and when required, will be of the developer. The transmission of power up to the interconnection point and delivery point where the metering is done for energy accounting will be the developer’s responsibility. Also, the developer has to take charge of the maintenance of the transmission system up to the interconnection point. The arrangement of connectivity must be done by the developer by a dedicated transmission line for the individual project or pooled projects, as the case may be. The stated annual capacity utilisation factor (CUF) should, in no case, be lower than 17%. The developer must maintain generation to gain annual CUF within +10% and -15% of the stated value until the end of 10 years from the commissioning date. This is subject to the annual CUF remaining minimum of 15%, and within +10%, and -20% of the stated value of the annual CUF, after that, until the end of the PPA duration of 25 years. The modules and cells used in the project should be sourced only from the manufacturers and models covered in the ‘Approved List of Models and Manufacturers’ issued by MNRE. To engage in the bidding process, the bidder’s net worth should be higher than or equal to Rs 8 million per MW of the quoted capacity as of the last date of the preceding financial year. The bidder’s minimum annual income must be Rs 4.145 million MW of the quoted capacity in the preceding financial year. The internal resource generation capacity in the form of earnings before depreciation, interest, and taxes, for a minimum amount of Rs 830,000 per MW of the quoted capacity as of the last date of the preceding financial year. The bidder must have an approval letter from the lending organisation committing a line of credit of Rs 1.036 million per MW of the quoted capacity towards reaching the working capital demand of the project. REMCL has also invited tenders to generate 400 MW of grid-connected solar plants on vacant lands of the Indian Railways. The solar project will be formed under the capital expenditure model. REMCL has offered about 3 GW of solar capacity as of date. Image Source Also read: Indian Railways invites bids for 15 MW solar project with battery storage Also read: Bharat Petroleum floats tender for 15 MW solar, non-solar RE projects