Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) has invited bids to install 2.39 MW (DC) of ground-mounted and rooftop solar systems at 13 HPCL locations across the country.

The last date to submit the bids is June 30, 2022.

Bidders will have to pay an earnest money deposit ranging from ₹200,000 to  ₹1 million to participate in the bidding process for various schedules.

Only ‘Class I’ and ‘Class II local suppliers’ will be eligible to submit bids for this tender. However, preference will be given only to ‘Class-I local suppliers.’ The local content requirement to categorize a bidder as a ‘Class-I local supplier’ is a minimum of 50%, and a ‘Class-II local supplier’ is 20%.

This tender has been floated schedule-wise. The technical and financial requirements for the tender are given below:

For all locations except Budge Budge 1 Lube Plant, bidders should have successfully designed, supplied, tested, and commissioned a grid-connected ground-mounted or rooftop solar system, not less than 50 kW in a single project during the last seven years ending on May 31, 2022.

For Budge Budge 1 Lube Plant, bidders should have successfully designed, supplied, tested, and commissioned a grid-connected ground-mounted or rooftop solar system, not less than 100 kW in a single project during the last seven years ending on May 31, 2022.

The pre-qualification criteria will be relaxed by 15% for micro and small enterprises (MSEs), subject to meeting the prescribed quality and technical specification of the tendered items or services.

If bidders participate in more than one schedule, the technical and financial pre-qualification criteria will be the sum of the required amount corresponding to the chosen schedules.

The respective grid-interactive solar project will be connected to the local utility under the net metering agreement, wherein the excess energy generated and not consumed by HPCL will be credited by the utility in the monthly billing.

HPCL has stated that the rated capacity of the solar modules should be equal to or greater than 325W for all the locations. The modules should have an efficiency of not less than 16%, and the fill factor should be equal to or above 75%.

In April this year, HPCL issued a tender to select a project management consultant to supervise a 10 MW ground-mounted solar project at Ankleshwar, Gujarat.

Earlier, HPCL had invited bids to develop a 1.3 MW ground-mounted solar project at its Yediyur Receiving Station in the Tumakuru district of Karnataka.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, HPCL has so far floated tenders for 14 MW of solar projects.