The Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL) has invited bids for the design, engineering, supply, installation, and commissioning of 224 MW of grid-connected solar projects ranging from 10 MW to 55 MW at various substations of the Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation (GETCO).

The successful bidder will also have to take care of the operation and maintenance activities of the project for five years.

The last date to submit the bids online is September 8, 2021, and bids will be opened on September 15. The pre-bid meeting will be held on September 1.

The project’s estimated cost is ₹8.96 billion (~$120.9 million), and interested bidders will have to submit an amount of ₹400,000 (~$5,396)/MW as an earnest money deposit. The successful bidder will have to furnish 10% of the contract price as a performance bank guarantee within seven working days of accepting the award letter.

The group-wise allocation of capacity is given below:

To participate in the bidding process, the bidder should have designed, supplied, and commissioned grid-connected solar projects with a cumulative installed capacity of 40% or higher of the total bid capacity in MW, out of which one project should be 5 MW for 10 MW to 20 MW capacity and 10 MW or higher for bid capacity in the range of 21 MW to 55 MW. The reference project should have been in successful operation for at least 12 months before the bid opening date.

The bidder’s net worth during the last financial year should be positive.

The bidder is advised to visit and examine the site conditions, traffic, location, surroundings, climate, availability of power, water, and other utilities for construction, access to the site, handling and storage of materials, weather data, applicable laws, and regulations, and sole responsibility to obtain all information that may be necessary for preparing the bid and entering into the contract agreement.

The minimum capacity utilization factor for the group of locations has been set as 25%.

According to the tender documents, the solar modules to be employed must be of minimum 72 cell configuration with a rated power of module ≥300 Wp, as certified for solar photovoltaic module power performance test as prescribed by the latest edition of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61215 and IEC 61730 and as tested by the IEC or the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy-recognized test laboratory.

In May this year, GSECL invited bids to supply and replace degraded polycrystalline solar modules installed at the 1 MW ash dyke solar project in Gandhinagar. The scope of work included replacing all technologies of existing modules, except monocrystalline modules, with the same capacity of high-efficiency polycrystalline modules.

Earlier, GSECL had invited bids for the design, engineering, supply, procurement, and construction of 112 MW grid-connected solar projects ranging from 10 MW to 50 MW at substations of GETCO.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, GSECL has so far floated tenders for 1 GW of solar projects.