Indian Railways Inviting Bids For 15MW Solar Project Coupled with BESS

The joint venture of Indian Railways and Rail India Technical and Economic Service Lmt. (RITES), Railway Energy Management Company Limited (REMCL) has invited bids to select developers for setting up a 15MW solar PV power plant with 7MW/14MWh battery energy storage systems (BESS).

Indian Railways is planning to set up its first pilot solar PV power plant coupled with BESS on Railway land at ButiBori, near Nagpur in Maharashtra. The power generated from this solar power plant would be required to be injected at the ButiBori State Transmission Unit (MSETCL).

The last date of bid submission and opening is August 9, 2021, while a pre-bid meeting has been scheduled for June 15, 2021.

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Interested bidders are expected to pay a non-refundable tender bidding fee of Rs. 10,000 while the bidder has to pay an Earnest Moey Deposite EMD/Bid Security of Rs. 4,00,000/per MW. However, all micro, small, and medium enterprises with Udyog Aadhaar certificates will be exempted from the payment of bid security amount. The cost of the tender documents for domestic as well as international bidders is Rs. 29,500.

According to the tender documents, a power purchase agreement (PPA) of 25 years would be signed with the developer to supply energy at discovered and accepted tariff. The PPA needs to be signed within 30 days from when the letter of award (LoA) is issued. REMCL may encash the bid security submitted by the developer if the PPA wouldn’t get signed within the time specified in the tender document. The scope of work includes the entire responsibility of getting the grid connectivity and long-term access from the state transmission utility.

The tender document also notifies that the capacity utilization factor should be at least 17 percent for the PPA period, while the BESS availability should be 98 percent.

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To find themselves eligible for the bidding, interested bidders must have a net worth of equal to or greater than Rs. 4 Crores of the quoted capacity for the bid, as of the last date of the previous financial year. While bidder’s minimum annual turnover should be Rs. 3.15 Crores of offered capacity during the last financial year.

As the Indian Railways, aims to become a “net-zero” carbon emissions organization by 2030, it has done many developments towards incorporating Renewable Energy sources in the railway sector. Back in December 2020, the REMCL has had issued an expression of interest (EOI) for its Pilot Project for the procurement of Flexible, Schedulable renewable power for the long term from a grid-connected solar project with an energy storage system.

Before that in November 2020, REMCL released a tender for a 1GW of solar plants on railway land available close to railway tracks that have run into a wall of disinterest from solar developers.

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