The Ministry of Finance, Maldives, on behalf of the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Technology, has invited bids to select developers to install 20 MW of grid-connected solar power projects across the country’s 20 inhabited islands under a design, build, own, operate, maintain, and transfer basis.

The project will be developed under a public-private partnership.

The Maldives government, with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), proposed to implement the ‘Accelerating Sustainable System Development Using Renewable Energy (ASSURE)’ project, which would support capital investments in battery energy storage, grid upgrades, and energy management systems.

Bidders must register with the Ministry of Finance from May 14, 2023, to August 10, 2023.

The last date to submit the bids is August 14, 2023. A pre-bid meeting will be held on June 1.

Bidders must submit $200 as a non-refundable registration fee to participate in the tender. Bidders must furnish $500,000 as a bid security deposit, which will be valid for 180 days from the due date.

The international competitive bidding will be conducted per the public finance regulations of the Maldives government.

Bidding documents and other documentation will be available to all registered bidders via an online data room.

Last year, the Ministry of Finance issued a request for bids for infrastructure works to support grid modernization and the connection and integration of solar power in the network across fifteen islands.

Earlier, the World Bank had approved a $107.4 million project to help the Maldives accelerate its transition to renewable energy. The ‘Accelerating Renewable Energy Integration and Sustainable Energy (ARISE)’ project builds on the efforts of the existing World Bank-funded program ‘Accelerating Sustainable Private Investments in Renewable Energy (ASPIRE)’ initiative to bring in private investments for increasing renewable energy capacity in the Maldives.

In 2020, ADB had approved a concessional loan worth $7.74 million and a project grant worth $2.73 million to advance the existing ‘Preparing Outer Islands for Sustainable Energy Development (POISED)’ project in the Maldives.