EEREM Centre’s Pre-Bid for 35 MW Grid-Connected Rooftop Solar Projects attracts 220 bidders

The first pre-bid meeting for the 35 MW Grid-Connected Rooftop Solar project was held in New Delhi at The Park Hotel. Over 220 prospective bidders from across the country attended the meeting and got the opportunity to interact with EEREM and IPGCL representatives. The participants deliberated upon various important topics such as Generation Based Incentive for residential consumers, Payment Security Mechanism for developers, Data Room for Developers, Eligibility criterion, Bid Cost, Bid Bond and Insurance.

The meeting was chaired by Smt. Varsha Joshi, Secretary Power, and Government of NCT OF DELHI. Also present at the meeting were Mr. Jagdish Kumar, Director Technical, IPGCL; Mr. R.K. Jain,  Director Finance, IPGCL; Mr. R.K Nagpal, GM Solar, IPGCL, Mr. A.K Jha, Executive Officer, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Management Centre (EEREM), Mr. Sameer Siddique, Assistant Manager, Delhi Cooperative Housing Finance Corporation (DCHFC); Mani Khurana, Senior Energy Specialist, The World Bank Group and Mr. Somesh Kumar, Partner, Power & Utilities, EY.

Mr. A.K Jha and IPGCL team members addressed the salient features of the tender. Mr. Jha explained the subsidy scheme targeted towards consumers in this tender consisting of - residential, institutional and social sector consumers. He also detailed the 5 MW Open tender category, under the tender, which will be open for developers fulfilling the financial and technical criterion. He explained that this category will be allocated only after allocation of other tendered capacities.

Speaking on the pre-bid meeting, Smt. Varsha Joshi, Secretary (Power), Government of NCT of Delhi said, “It is great to see developers participate in such big numbers, at the meeting today. We have made an attempt to make this project lucrative for all developers by, giving them a choice to bid under both CAPEX and RESCO models. We have also attempted to introduce a number of innovations and facilities such as the Data room, financial assistance for developers and consumers. We hope this will empower prospective bidders as well as consumers and will help us make this project successful.”

Mr. Jha also spoke about the availability of concessional financing provided by Delhi Housing Finance corporation for domestic and CGHS consumers and also for educational institutes, hospitals and institutions.

The participants also deliberated upon the Performance Bank Guarantee(PBG) clause at the meeting. While Mr. Jha explained the provisioning of new mechanisms to ensure the interest of consumers in the form of PBG and the additional PBG during O&M Phase (for CAPEX), several RESCO players contested for removal of the clause, due to non-provisioning of the 10% in benchmark tariffs of MNRE. They also raised concerns that this clause might empower consumers to willingly withdraw the amount at their convenience and over trivial O&M issues.

Smt. Varsha Joshi also expressed her happiness over the quality of discussion at the meeting and encouraged all developers to write to IPGCL with any quires and assured them of a speedy response from the department.

The pre-bid meeting was interactive and invited valuable suggestions. Suggestions and revisions were also shared on the Plant Performance Evaluation, where IPGCL has revised minimum annual generation units to be 1100 units/kW (maintained for 5 years), to ensure deployment and maintenance of quality solar projects.

In order to safeguard the interest of RESCO developers, the tender, now also provisions for an additional payment security mechanism of crediting GBI amount directly to the account of the power producer instead of the purchaser. Penalty clause has also been included, to ensure that the producer meets the outlined generation.

The question and answer session received appreciation from all participants and the efforts of EEREM and IPGCL were applauded. There was a consensus on the government’s efforts to facilitate the developers and consumers.

The deadline for Bid submission still remains to be December 21, 2018. The tender is available for reference at http://ipgcl-ppcl.gov.in and is expected to be awarded by 31st December, 2018.