Tender Cancellations- A Proactive Government Or Regulatory Failure?

Several battery energy storage (BESS), solar, and wind tenders that saw sharply  shortened bid submission timelines have come under the lens now, as module manufacturers have complained that this was done to beat the deadline for exemption on using imported cells. With the August 31 deadline for using these looming, the government has flagged multiple tenders that crunched the tinmelines from RFQ to announcement of winners, so that winners could beat the DCR requirement. From June 1, all projects have to use domectic cells in any case. The August deadline for this year was set based on the assumption that financial closure etc can take  upto a year.   

Based on this trend, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued a notification warning tendering agencies that  provided very short bid submission timelines for renewable projects before August. This comes after several solar tenders were recently issued with unusually short submission periods.

On the developer front, the short deadlines raise their own issues as Industry experts say these accelerated processes leave less experienced developers little time for financial and technical assessments, resulting in fewer bids and higher project risks. Submission windows have shrunk from six months to three, and in some cases, just one month—reflecting a broader trend of rushed tendering in India’s renewable energy sector. Some examples include -

GAIL India  issued a 17.5 MW floating solar tender in Uttar Pradesh (UP) around August 4, 2025, with a bid submission deadline of August 19, 2025, giving developers just 15 days to submit their bids. 

THDC India also issued a 53.9 MWac/72.8 MWp Solar Project in Karnataka on August 22, 2025, with a bid submission deadline of August 28, 2025, which is approximately six days from the date of issuing the tender. 

These examples highlight the trend of shortened bid submission windows in India's renewable energy sector during August 2025. The government's intervention to cancel and reissue these tenders underscores the importance of adhering to procurement guidelines and ensuring adequate time for thorough project assessments.

Why Tenders Are Being Accelerated and Cancelled

Developers are now under pressure to comply with the June 2026 target requiring local modules and cells.

Earlier this year, it was informed by the government that in July, India cancelled 11,400 MW renewable energy procurement tenders issued since April 2023 citing lack of progress. Multiple challenges like insufficient participation, high discovered tariffs, and withdrawal by end-procurers had been cited for the delays. A key factor was also the blocking of limited trasmission capacity by many of these tender winners, even as their projects made little headway. It has not been uncommon to have developers petition for transferring such 'rights' to a later project subsequently, a kind of capacity hogging that has clearly tested the patience of the government now.