REMC Limited, a joint venture of the Indian Railways and RITES, has invited bids to set up 1.548 GW of ground-mounted solar power projects near the traction substations at 25 kV connectivity across India.

The projects will be developed on a build, own, and operate basis.

The last date to submit the bids is September 13, 2022. Bids will be opened on the same day.

Bidders must submit ₹1.068 million (~$13,371) per MW per package as an earnest money deposit.

The successful bidder will have to furnish ₹1.602 million (~$20,057)/MW as a performance bank guarantee.

The power purchase agreements (PPA) will be processed and signed by the respective nodal zonal railway with the successful solar power developer.

The responsibility of getting connectivity with the transmission system owned by the Railways traction system, as may be required, will be of the solar developer.

The declared annual capacity utilization factor (CUF) should in no case be less than 17%. The developer should maintain generation to achieve annual CUF within + 10% and -15% of the declared value until the end of 10 years from the commissioning date and within +10% and -20% of the declared value of the annual CUF thereafter until the end of 25 years.

Any bidder from a country that shares a land border with India will be eligible to bid in this tender.

The package-wise distribution of the total capacity of 1.548 GW of solar projects is given below:

The Railways proposes to promote only commercially established and operational technologies to minimize technology risk and achieve timely commissioning of the projects.

The bidders’ net worth should be greater than or equal to ₹10.7 million (~$133,966) /MW of the quoted capacity, as of the last date of the previous financial year.

Their minimum annual turnover should be at least ₹3.517 million/MW of the quoted capacity during the previous financial year.

Bidders should have an internal resource generation capability, in the form of profit before interest, depreciation, taxes, and amortization for a minimum of ₹703,400 (~$8,806)/MW of the quoted capacity, as of the last date of the previous financial year.

They should have in-principle sanction from the lending institutions committing a ‘Line of Credit’ for ₹879,000 (~$11,005)/MW of the quoted capacity, towards meeting the working capital requirement of the project.

The solar developer will be responsible for arranging land for the project, for a period not less than the complete term of PPA.

In May this year, REMCL invited bids to select solar project developers to set up 50 MW of ground-mounted solar projects on private owners or farmers’ land near the traction substations at 25 kV connectivity in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Earlier, REMCL had issued a notice inviting tender to enroll agencies or consultants to set up solar projects.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, REMCL has tendered nearly 4.1 GW of solar capacity as of date.