Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) has floated a tender for the supply, installation, and commissioning of 1.5 MW of grid-tied rooftop solar power projects to be installed on various government buildings in the state.

The projects will be developed under the CAPEX (capital expenditure) model.

The prospective bidders need to pay ₹80,000 (~$1,117.05) as the earnest money deposit (EMD). The last date for the submission of bids is January 10, 2020.

The tender states that the interested bidder should use a domestically manufactured solar cell only if they have been manufactured in India using undiffused silicon wafer (black wafer) classifiable under customs tariff head 3818.

In October 2019, Mercom had reported that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy issued a clarification stating that if diffused silicon wafer (blue wafer) is imported and is used as a raw material for the manufacture of solar photovoltaic cells, it will not qualify as domestically manufactured solar photovoltaic cells. “It was seen that some manufacturers have been importing semi-processed solar PV cells (generally called blue wafer) and making final solar PV cells with little value addition in India,” the MNRE order had said.

In line with the government’s specifications, the tender specifies that all processes required for manufacturing solar PV cells from undiffused silicon wafer should have been carried out in India, and the solar modules must be manufactured in the country.

As far as the technical specification is concerned, the components and parts used in the SPV power projects should conform to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) or the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), or any other relevant international specifications.

The prospective bidders should have a minimum turnover of ₹10 million (~$139,800) in the last three financial years to be eligible to participate in this tender.

According to TEDA, the prospective bidder should have had prior installation experience of grid-tied solar systems for a cumulative capacity of at least 150 kW in the last three years.

Apart from the installation of the solar systems, the scope of work also includes five years of comprehensive maintenance of the rooftop solar projects.

Earlier this year, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) had issued new net metering guidelines for solar rooftop consumers as part of its Solar Policy 2019.

In February 2019, Mercom reported about the state’s Solar Energy Policy 2019, which stated that Tamil Nadu is targeting 9 GW of solar installations by 2023 between utility-scale and distributed generation projects. Of this, the state has targeted 40% (3.6 GW) of installations to come from the consumer category (residential rooftop and small-scale solar installations).

More recently, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission passed an order granting an exemption to high tension consumers installing rooftop solar projects for parallel operation and captive use without the export of power to the grid. Parallel operation is the simultaneous execution of two or more operations.

Image credit: Cocreatr [CC BY-SA 2.0]