Good response to govt’s floating solar project

12 companies submit bids

Panaji: The state government’s plan to accelerate green energy in the state through grid-connected floating solar plants, being tried out for the first time, has received encouraging response from prospective developers with 12 companies evincing interest in the project.

“The response is good, as the bidders include companies with background in energy generation. Among the 12 bidders are two public sector undertakings (PSUs), multinational companies (MNCs) and one Goan company,” said Alexio da Costa, director, department of new and renewable energy (DNRE), on Thursday.

He said the department is scrutinising the bids and will decide on the solar power developers in about ten days’ time. “The project is going to be implemented within a specified time frame. It will take about a year to commission, as floating solar plants are more complex than the land-based plants and require more time to be set up,” said Da Costa.

The floating solar power project envisages power plants on four dams – Selaulim, Amthane, Anjunem and Chapoli – on design, build, finance and operate model for a period of 25 years. The DNRE had asked the bidders to assess the capacity of each dam and propose tariff at which solar power will be supplied to the state grid.

“The companies that give us the lowest tariff and highest power generation capacity will be selected. The estimated solar power generation to the state through the project is of 50 MW, which means about 12.5 MW at each of the four dam locations. The cost for the companies to generate solar power is likely to be in the range of Rs 4 crore to Rs 5 crore per MW,” disclosed Da Costa.

Besides generation of clean energy, the project is expected to have the added advantage of conservation of water due to less evaporation, job creation to the local, rural community, higher solar generation due to maintained temperature of the solar panels and saving on land cost.

On August 27, the government had invited bids for the expression of interest (EOI) for which the deadline was October 26.

Companies that have submitted bids are Ravindra Energy, Karnataka; Convergence Energy Services Ltd; Hero Future Energies, N Delhi; Phelan Energy Group, N Delhi; Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam, a mini-Ratna PSU based in Shimla; Ratta Green Energy Resources, Honda, Sattari; Solar Pack Corporation Technologica; Maheshwari Mining and Energy, Telangana; Orina Power Pvt Ltd, Noida; U-Solar Clean Energy, Bengaluru; Fabricons, Mumbai and Birkin Engineering Industries Pvt Ltd, Uttar Pradesh.

Floating solar projects are a relatively new concept in the country with three states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh so far having them.

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