Pre-Bid Meetings for 3 SECI Tenders Worth 9000 MW Postponed

SECI has announced the postponement of pre-bid meetings for three of its active tenders worth a combined 9000 MW in renewable projects and power.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has issued a notification, announcing the postponement of pre-bid meetings for three of its active renewable tenders worth a combined 9000 MW in projects and power.

The pre-bid meetings for the following three tenders have been postponed

(i)   2000 MW ISTS-Connected Solar PV Power Projects (ISTS-IX),

(ii)  2000 MW ISTS-Connected Wind Power Projects (Tranche-IX),

(iii) 5000 MW RTC with Thermal Power (RTC-II)

SECI has announced that the pre-bid meetings for the three tenders have been extended until further notice. And that the revised schedule for the same will be intimated through email to the participants of the Video Conferencing.

The tender for selection of solar power developers for setting up of 2000 MW of ISTS-connected solar PV power projects in India (ISTS-IX) was issued in March. As per the tender, SECI shall enter into a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the successful Bidder selected based on this RfS for purchase of Solar Power for a period of 25 years based on the terms, conditions and provisions of the RfS. Power procured by SECI from the above Projects has been provisioned to be sold to the different Buying Utilities of India.

The tender for selection of wind power developers for setting up of 2000 MW of ISTS-connected wind power projects in India under Tranche-IX was issued along with the tender for the 2000 MW (ISTS-IX) solar PV power projects. The nodal agency has stated that its new RfS document, along with standard PPA and PSA documents will replace the RfS, PPA and PSA documents issued in September last year under Tranche-IX for setting up of 1200 MW wind power projects including their subsequent amendments and clarifications.

Buying Entities that require wind power to fulfill their non-solar RPO under respective RPO regulations will be eligible to buy wind power under this scheme. SECI shall sign PPAs with the WPDs at the respective tariffs discovered after e-reverse auction and back-to-back Power Sale Agreements (PSAs) with the Buying Entities at a pooled price of the total capacity allotted (rounded off to two decimal places). The duration of the PPAs and PSAs shall be 25 years from the Scheduled Commissioning Date or from the date of full commissioning of the Projects, whichever is earlier.

The tender for procurement of 5000 MW power on Round-The-Clock based, from renewable energy projects, complemented with thermal power was issued in January. As per the NIT, the developments in the renewable energy sector and the necessity to address the issues of intermittency, limited hours of supply and low capacity utilisation of transmission infrastructure make case for “reverse bundling”, wherein high-cost thermal power is allowed to be bundled with cheaper renewable energy and is provided round-the-clock to the Discom.