The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has extended its bid submission deadline for the selection of solar power developers for 2,000 MW of grid-connected solar PV projects in India.

The projects will be developed under the Tranche I of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) program. The new deadline is July 2, 2019, says a SECI notification.

SECI had issued this Request for Selection (RfS) under the second phase of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) program in which the projects will be developed on Build-Own-Operate (B-O-O) basis. The tender was issued in March 2019. The last date for the submission of bids was initially May 3, 2019, with a pre-bid meeting scheduled for April 10, 2019.

Any interested bidder is eligible to bid for a minimum project capacity of 10 MW and a maximum capacity of 2,000 MW. A bidder can set up the cumulative project capacity at a single location. The projects can be in the multiples of 10 MW, and the minimum capacity of each block should be 20 MW.

The scheduled commissioning date of the full capacity of the project will be 18 months from the date of issuance of Letter of Award (LoA), which can be extended for another six months.

To bid, the RfS has stipulated the net worth of the bidder should be more than ₹12.5 million (~$0.18 million)/MW in the last financial year.

The maximum permissible limit for viability gap funding (VGF) has been kept at ₹7 million (~$0.10 million)/MW for these projects, according to the bid documents.

The President of India accorded his approval to implement phase-II of the CPSU program to set up 12,000 MW of grid-connected solar power projects for self-use or use by government entities.

The CPSU program was proposed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE). Under this, the government producers will get four years: 2019-2020 to 2022-23, to set up 12,000 MW of solar power projects.

Under the program, the usage charges should not exceed ₹3.50 (~$0.050)/kWh and will be exclusive of any other third-party charge such as wheeling, transmission charges and losses, and the likes.

Of late, there have been numerous bid extensions by SECI, with the latest being the deadline extension for its 97.5 MW grid-connected rooftop solar tender. The tender is for setting up grid-connected rooftop solar PV installations for government buildings across Indian states and union territories.

Besides that, recently it also extended the bid submission deadline for the tender to set up 500 MW (Phase I) of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Tamil Nadu on B-O-O basis.

Recently, the tender floated by SECI to set up 1.2 GW of interstate transmission system (ISTS)-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) projects across India was oversubscribed by 900 MW.