The Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL), a joint venture of the Indian Railways and RITES Limited, has invited bids for the development of up to 400 MW of grid-connected solar power projects on vacant lands of the Indian Railways. The solar project will be developed under the capital expenditure (CAPEX) model.

The last date for the submission of bids is September 16, 2020, and the pre-bid meeting will take place on July 16, 2020.

Interested bidders will have to submit an amount of ₹400,000 (~$5,277) as the earnest money deposit (EMD) payable to REMCL. The period of work has been set for 420 days.

Mercom will cover the tender in more detail after relevant documents with all the information are made available.

REMCL has been assigned the responsibility of setting up 3 GW of solar power projects on vacant lands of the Indian Railways. The project will be divided into three phases of 1 GW each. The first and third phases will be carried out under a public-private partnership basis under the design, build, finance, operate, and transfer model. Meanwhile, the second phase will be carried out under the ownership of REMCL.

During the announcement of the Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had stated that solar capacity would be deployed along the railway tracks on lands owned by the Indian Railways. She had mentioned that the government aims to electrify 27,000 km of railway tracks.

Earlier, RITES floated a tender for setting up 1 GW of land-based solar photovoltaic power projects on various zonal railways land across India. The last date for submission of bids is June 29, 2020, and the pre-bid meeting was held on May 28, 2020.

Previously, Mercom had reported that Indian Railways was planning to source approximately 1 GW of solar power and nearly 200 MW of wind power by 2021-22 across zonal railways and production units. Out of the 1 GW of solar projects, the ministry plans to install 500 MW on the rooftop of railway buildings, while the remaining 500 MW will be used to meet both traction and non-traction requirements. The Indian Railways is the single largest consumer of electricity, with about a 2% share of the national energy consumption.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, RITES has so far tendered nearly 366 MW of solar capacity.