NTPC Issues Tender Seeking Partners To Venture Into Offshore Wind Business

MNRE Proposes to Hold Bids for 7215 MW Offshore Wind in Tamil Nadu

NTPC Green Energy Limited (NGEL), the green arm of the NTPC Group, has now expressed its intention to venture into the business of offshore wind projects in the country. This sector is now largely untouched in India, with no visible players in sight to undertake large offshore wind projects. 

Paving the way for the same, NGEL today issued a global tender seeking bids from Indian or foreign firms to form a consortium and work with NGEL to setup up offshore wind projects in the country. It comes after the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) published a strategy paper and looked for allocating different blocks of coastal regions in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu for offshore wind energy projects, amounting to 37 Gigawatt (GW). 

In the tender, the company proposed that NGEL would act as the lead member for these offshore wind projects. NTPC has already targeted to achieve 60 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. This move will likely boost its new portfolio, aiding in faster increased clean energy capacity. NGEL said that there are no offshore wind projects operational in India. Thus, it desired to collaborate with a partner having expertise in the technology to assist the firm in undertaking such projects. 

NGEL said it would infuse capital contribution for developing such a project from inception to decommissioning based on mutually agreed milestones. It said that the bidders, after winning the bid, could also incorporate a Joint Venture (JV) for implementing the project. It also asked the involved forms to agree to contribute capital for these projects too. NGEL said that its entry into the segment would be the first of its kind in India.

“NGEL’s foray into offshore wind projects will be one of India’s first offshore wind projects with state-of-the-art technologies,” the bid document said.

Eligibilities for the bidders

The tender document said that the selection of successful bidders would be based on a ranking of the bids on a single-stage basis where the bidder must fulfill the compulsory criteria. Later the evaluation of technical and financial criteria would be done. 

To be eligible to bid for the tender, NGEL said that the players must have commissioned at least 1200 MW of offshore wind energy capacities globally, have in place an environmental policy specific to offshore wind project infrastructure, and have a health and safety policy, too, besides other conditions. 

It also laid out different marks based on the eligibility and potential of the bidders based on different parameters to rank firms accordingly. The firms thus would be ranked based on their total experience in the sector, the total capacity of commissioned offshore projects, and managing marine surveys for such projects, among others.