Gensol Engineering announced that it has won the auction to develop 30 MW floating solar projects by quoting ₹2.32 billion (~$28.64 million).

The projects will be spread over three thermal power stations in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

The tender was issued by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in June this year for developing projects at Damodar Valley Corporation’s thermal power stations located in Koderma (6 MW), Mejia (14 MW), and Raghunathpur (10 MW).

The scope of work includes designing, engineering, and commissioning these projects and comprehensive operation and maintenance services for ten years.

The floating solar projects must be commissioned within 12 months, and the solar modules and cells used for the project must be supplied through ‘Class I local suppliers’ only.

A Class-I local supplier must have 50%, or above local content in goods, services, or works offered for procurement.

The cells and modules used for the projects must be sourced only from the models and manufacturers included in the List-I of the Approved List of Modules and Manufacturers order issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The tender comes at a time when the government is trying to resolve the intermittent nature of renewable while also cutting down on coal dependency.

The Ministry of Power had recently proposed that any coal-based thermal generation station coming up after April 1, 2024, must either install or procure renewable energy equivalent to 25% of the thermal generation capacity.

The proposal was in line with the government’s goal to operationalize a provision in the Tariff Policy, 2016, which says that the renewable energy produced by each generator could be sold after bundling it with thermal energy.

Gensol Engineering announced that as of September 18, 2022, it had closed orders for the development of over 121 MW aggregate capacity of solar power projects worth over ₹5.31 billion (~$66.61 million).

The company is also expanding its business scope to electric vehicle manufacturing and recently announced the acquisition of a majority stake in a U.S.-based EV manufacturing startup.

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