Friday, June 06, 2014: The Indian government is expected to open the tenders for two 50MW CSP pilot projects in a couple of months, July to be precise. The same was recently revealed by Ashvini Kumar, Director, Solar Energy Corporation India (SECI). Expressions of interest for both international as well as local EPC contractors will be invited for the two pilot projects under the second phase of the National Solar Mission (NSM) to be launched shortly.
The two pilot projects aim to be the bridging gap between Phase I and Phase 2 NSM allocations. It must be noted that the first phase allocations took place almost five years ago. The pilot projects therefore are expected to end the dry spell of sorts with respect to India’s solar ambitions. Further, Kumar has also revealed that SECI will be acting as the owner and developer for the projects. Therefore, the tenders would be opening only for EPC contracts to bid.
According to SECI, the two pilot projects will be key to the successful deployment of large scale CSP in the country. As such, the Solar Energy Corporation is seeking support from international CSP experts from Asian Development Bank, Tractebel Engineering to ensure international standards and best practices are met for the implementation of the projects. Likewise, the projects are attracting wide-scale attention from both local and international CSP companies. With that said, the projects are currently at an advanced stage of approval, and are expected to be developed by 2017.
