NTPC Floats Tender For O&M Of Up To 50 MW Solar Projects

India’s largest power producer, state-owned NTPC has floated a tender inviting bids from the prospective vendors to operate and maintain up to 50 MW solar projects. Operation and maintenance has been defined in the floated tender as prevention of breakdown, maintenance following a breakdown and overhauls extending to normal housekeeping, cleaning etc. The NTPC will need services of the vendor for three years. A vendor can submit the bids on or before but not later than August 11, 2022.

The criterion for an eligible applicant and successful vendor have been laid down in the tender as following-
The first condition concerns the background and experience of the vendor. One must have executed the commissioning of minimum 10 MW grid connected solar projects in the last 5 years or operated and maintained the minimum 10 MW capacity grid connected solar project for at least 1 year in last 5 years.

The second condition is with regards  to the financial condition of a vendor. A bidder’s net worth should not be less than 75% of the total paid-up share capital. In case the bidder is a collection/group of subsidiaries, holding company, the net worth should not be less than 100% of the total paid-up share capital.

In May, this, power utility NTPC Limited had invited bids for the comprehensive Operation and Maintenance (O&M) of 5 blocks (50*5) of its 250 MWp Mandsaur solar PV plant for 3 years. NTPC invited these online bids on Single Stage Two Envelope Bidding basis (Envelope-I: Techno-commercial Bid & Envelope-II: Price Bid) from eligible bidders.

NTPC is working towards making its energy portfolio greener and has made several important capacities of Renewable Energy(RE) Sources. In a decade’s time, the state-owned company is looking to add 60GW capacity through RE sources which make up almost 45% of its overall power generation capacity.

NTPC’s commissioned capacity stands at 1769.68 MW of RE projects under own capacity addition. NTPC serves as an intermediary procurer where it procures power from the Developers and sells to DISCOMs with a trading margin. 4783 MW of RE projects have been commissioned under the developer mode so far.