BHEL Exploring Opportunities in Manufacturing in Solar PV Value Chain

BHEL has invited bids from reputed consultancy firms to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for manufacturing in the solar PV value chain

India’s largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise in the energy and infrastructure sector, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has invited bids to appoint a consulting firm with a proven track record and requisite competence to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for manufacturing in the solar PV value chain.

BHEL has stated that in order to support the Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign of the government, it is imperative that the dependence on imports be reduced. It believes that the Solar PV value chain holds substantial indigenization potential especially upstream as there is no domestic polysilicon and wafer manufacturing capacity and minimal cell manufacturing capacity. Against this background, BHEL is exploring opportunities in manufacturing in the solar PV value chain.

With this objective, BHEL intends to appoint a consulting firm with a proven track record and requisite competence to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the same.

BHEL hereby invites bids from reputed consultancy firms for the preparation of the DPR. The work will be carried out within eight weeks from the date of award of the contract as per the scope of work mentioned in the detailed tender documents.

The last date for submission of proposals is April 9, 2021, and the technical bids will be opened on the same date. The date and time of opening of the price bids will be intimate to the technically cleared bidders later. A pre-bid meeting has been scheduled for March 24, 2021, to address the concerns raised by the prospective bidders.

Objective:

Identification of (a) opportunities in entering/ expanding/ backward integration solar PV manufacturing value chain and (b) support required to make the opportunities in (a) viable. This is in line with the company’s aspirations of identification and diversification into emerging technology areas for growth & sustainability and simultaneously increasing the share of non-coal business.

The details in the following sections capture the specific requirements of the scope of work. However, these requirements shall not be the limiting factor to meet the objective. The consulting firm will be responsible for all the activities as required and as detailed below:

Preparation of Detailed project report for manufacturing of complete solar PV value chain (quartz – polycrystalline – wafer-cell – modules) including the followings:

1. Market research and sectoral assessment

a. Global and Domestic outlook of the sector/industry from macro and micro perspective, opportunity size, scenario assessment over mid-term (5-7 years) and long term (10-12 years) horizon

b. Assessment of historical and the projected growth, competition intensity, margin structure, key raw material, demand-supply scenario and major sectoral trends (stage wise)

c. Value chain assessment, downstream processing requirement and developmental risks Demand and supply market analysis (global and indigenous) for all the products/by-products at all levels.

d. Regulatory, legal, economic and taxation landscape governing the sector and key challenges for BHEL, a public sector enterprise

e. Assessment of the strategic relevance of the sector and potential to leverage BHEL’s core competencies, positional advantage and diversification goals

2. Feasibility study, Business modelling and Market entry strategy

3. Support from the government

a. Details of support required from the government to make opportunities viable [policy advocacy issues to be identified for support required from the government including agencies/ Departments of GOI]

b. Analysis of available GoI schemes which can be looked upon for establishing the facility.

BHEL has a dedicated Solar Business Development Group (SBD) at Bengaluru for marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and project management in the solar segment. BHEL has a portfolio of more than 1.2 GW including ground-mounted, roof-top, canal-top, floating solar, etc. BHEL has a cell line of 100 MW capacity and a module line of 226 MW capacity.

Earlier in November 2020, BHEL had issued a tender for the supply of multi-crystalline solar photovoltaic (PV) cells (157 mm-5BB-4.62 Wp) as per BHEL technical specification.