Madhya Pradesh’s earlier tender for the installation of 25 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) projects has now been increased to 32 MW.

The projects, tendered by the Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (MPUVNL), will be developed under RESCO mode for the industries located in the industrial area of Mandideep. The tender was initially issued in February 2019 with a bid-submission deadline of May 15, 2019.

When contacted, Manu Srivastava, Principal Secretary, New and Renewable Energy, Government of Madhya Pradesh, said, “Yes, we have increased the area that will be covered by these rooftop solar PV projects, so the capacity has also increased. There are two fundamental changes that have been made. We have chosen reverse auction and broken down the tendered capacity into blocks of 4 MW each. We believe that a single bidder wouldn’t be able to execute judicially the entire capacity offered.”

The bid-submission deadline for the current tender for 32 MW capacity is July 16, 2019.

A single bidder must bid for a minimum capacity of 4 MW and can bid for a maximum of eight blocks (8*4 MW). The MPUVNL has fixed an upper tariff ceiling of ₹5.50 (~$0.079)/kWh for this tender, informed Srivastava.

There are no technical criteria for bidders in this tender which requires bidder’s minimum net worth to be ₹10 million (~$0.14 million)/MW. For the determination of financial eligibility, the net worth required is ₹40 million (~$0.57 million) for each package. If the net worth is found to be lower than the required amount, that participation will be reduced to a lower number of packages.

To qualify for packages, bidders must match the lowest tariff discovered in the reverse auction. According to MPUVNL, in future, if any industry that was not a part of this tender, wishes to install a rooftop solar PV system, then any of the selected bidders and the industry can mutually agree to implement the projects at the tariff discovered under this program. Such projects can be included as a part of this program over the next 12 months from the date of finalization of the lowest rate.

The project commissioning timeline is nine months from the date of entering the power purchase agreement (PPA) with the procurers. The procurer will provide a letter of credit as the payment security mechanism which is equivalent to three months of estimated energy generation.

Moreover, payment assurance will also be provided to the developer. To de-risk the project and to allocate the risk factor among all the stakeholders, MP Industrial Development Corporation and MPUVNL will be the co-signatories to the PPA.

The World Bank, with the help of the State Bank of India, as well as the Asian Development Bank, through the Punjab National Bank, will provide concessional loans at the rate of around 8.5% p.a. to the developers to execute these projects.

MPUVNL’s previous rooftop solar RESCO auction for the state’s institutions and government buildings, saw the emergence of lowest ever tariffs in the country’s rooftop segment.