The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has floated an invitation for bids for the selection of solar power developers for setting up 1,200 MW Interstate Transmission System (ISTS) connected solar projects in India.

Interested bidders are expected to pay an earnest money deposit (EMD) of ₹400,000 (~$5,600)/MW to participate in this tender.

A pre-bid meeting is scheduled to be held on March 6, 2020, and the last date for submission of bids is March 19, 2020.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, NTPC has 875 MW of large-scale solar projects in operation and about 2.1 GW capacity is currently under development.

Earlier, Mercom reported that 1.4 GWs of solar projects that were awarded for NTPC’s 2 GW solar tender were canceled due to regulatory delays.

The canceled projects were originally awarded to ACME Solar, Shapoorji Pallonji, and Azure Power projects for 600 MW, 500 MW, and 300 MW, respectively. The tariff for the projects was set at ₹2.59 (~$0.0372)/kW in August 2018. SB Energy, who was awarded 600 MW of projects at a tariff of ₹2.60 (~$0.0373)/kWh, was the only capacity that was not canceled, an official from the NTPC had then told Mercom. The SoftBank-owned power producer had placed a bid for 2 GW in the auction but was awarded only 600 MW. The 2 GW capacity was initially tendered by the NTPC in March 2018.

More recently, the NTPC announced that it had raised a syndicated loan worth $750 million (~₹53.5 billion) in Japanese Yen to fund capital expenditure for the installation of Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) systems. Flue gas desulphurization is a process of removing sulfur dioxide from exhaust flue gases of fossil-fuel power plants, and sulfur oxide emissions from processes like the incineration of waste material.