Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has invited bids to empanel vendors to develop solar projects at its locations and retail outlets across India.

The scope of work includes the design, engineering, testing, supply, packing, transportation, storage, installation, and commissioning of the project. The contract will also include the operation and maintenance of the project for two years and a further extension of three years subject to satisfactory performance.

The last date to submit the bids is October 16, 2021.

Indian Oil has invited bids in two categories:

• Category-I: Individual solar project of capacity up to 50 kW based in specific regions
• Category-II: Individual solar project capacity of above 50 kW and up to 500 kW on an all India basis

The states and union territories considered in different regions of Category-I are:

• East: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal, and Andaman& Nicobar
• North: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Chandigarh, and Delhi
• South: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Puducherry
• West: Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman& Diu, and Lakshadweep.

The bidder should have successfully installed and commissioned a cumulative capacity of 150 kW in the last three years to bid for Category-I.

For Category-II, the bidder should have installed and commissioned a cumulative capacity of 1,500 kW in the last three years.

The applicant should have completed the minimum capacities of similar works in the last three years.

Bidders must have an annual turnover of at least ₹6.5 million (~$88,172) for Category-I and ₹63 million (~$854,597) for Category-II.

Vendors must have at least one sales/service set up in any union territory or state where they apply for empanelment under Category-I.

The empaneled vendor applying under Category-I and Category-II must have participated in at least one tender for solar projects at the Indian Oil location. The application must have been under the empaneled category where the invitation was to bid from January 24, 2020, to July 31, 2020.  Alternatively, the bidder must have set up solar projects in at least two retail outlets of Indian Oil from January 24, 2020, to July 31, 2021.

In June this year, IOCL invited bids from engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractors to set up a 2 MW ground-mounted on-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) project at its LPG Bottling Plant at Tikri Kalan, Delhi.

Earlier, Central Electronics Limited had reissued the tender for setting up a 2.75 MW grid-connected ground-mounted solar power project at the IOCL’s LPG bottling plant at Trichy, Tamil Nadu.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, IOCL has so far floated tenders for 29 MW of solar projects.