The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has extended the bid submission deadline for its floating solar project tender with battery energy storage systems (BESS) to be developed at Kalpong Dam, Diglipur in North Andaman.

SECI extended the bid submission deadline to June 15, 2020, from May 18, 2020, set previously. It also noted that the techno-commercial bid opening would be carried out from June 18, 2020.

This is not the first time SECI has extended the bid submission deadline for the project. It had earlier extended the deadline for the project to May 18, 2020, from May 4, 2020. Before that, it revised the deadline from February 13, 2020, to May 4, 2020.

In January, the company issued a Request for Selection (RfS) for setting up 4 MW of grid-connected floating solar projects at Kalpong Dam. These solar projects were expected to come with a 2 MW BESS.

Interested bidders are permitted to submit a single bid for the project. The projects are to be designed for interconnection with the nearest electricity department at a voltage level of 33 kV. The selected bidder will be expected to allocate an annual capacity utilization factor, not less than 17%.

According to the tender documents, SECI proposed to promote only commercially established and operational technologies to minimize the technology risk and to achieve the timely commissioning of the project and expects the successful bidder to confirm the selection of technology at the time of financial closure.

Recently, Mercom reported that SECI, for the second time, also extended the bid submission deadline for a tender that included 14 MW of solar power projects with 42 MWh battery storage system (7MW/21 MWh each) at Leh and Kargil. The deadline was extended to June 30, 2020, from June 01, 2020, previously. The project was floated under the Prime Minister Development Package.

Image credit: SPG Solar / CC BY-SA (3.0)