TANGEDCO has floated bids for 420 MW of solar power under Component A of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) programme. According to the tender guidelines, bidders will be required to pay a bid processing fee of Rs 5,000 per MW of quoted capacity. They must submit an earnest money deposit of Rs 100,000 per MW. TANGEDCO has set a tariff ceiling of Rs 3.30 per kWh.
The central government intends to establish 10,000 MW of grid-connected solar power projects with individual project sizes of up to 2 MW under component A of the PM-KUSUM programme. The minimum capacity for each individual project has been set at 1 MW. TANGEDCO will enter into a power purchase agreement with the successful bidders for a period of 25 years beginning with the projects’ commercial operation date. The project must be commissioned within 12 months of the letter of award being issued.
If bidders are unable to secure funding, they may set up projects through a developer. In such a case, the landowner will receive the agreed-upon lease rent. Individual farmers, farmer groups, cooperatives, panchayats, farmer producer organisations, water user associations, and farmers who set up the project on their own lands can meet the financial eligibility requirement. If a developer builds the project on leased land, the bidder’s net worth cannot be less than Rs 10 million per MW of quoted capacity in any of the previous three financial years. The bidder should have sufficient cash flow, internal accruals, or bank references to manage the project’s funding requirements.
Recently, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited requested bids for the one-year operations and maintenance of 12.5 MW of solar projects installed at its Trichy, Tamil Nadu, facility.
