Solar power tenders
A Rs. 509-crore winning bid in GSECL’s floating solar procurement marks one of the sharpest price compressions seen in India’s recent Solar power tenders. GeM’s unlimited 15-minute auto-extension mechanism pushed bidders toward near-parity pricing, narrowing L1–L2 distance to only 0.2%—a hallmark of mature, hyper-competitive Solar power tenders.
The RA architecture shifted commercial risk toward EPC vendors, especially in a floating project where anchoring loads, bathymetry variation and grid interface risks can significantly alter post-award costs. Unlike traditional Solar power tenders, this process contained minimal pre-bid technical disclosures, compelling bidders to rely on internal assumptions. This partly explains the 36% premium quoted by Lumino—representing a “full engineering risk” pricing model—compared to the tight cluster at the top.
GSECL benefits from aggressive price discovery and strong compliance leverage under land-border procurement rules. Contractors, meanwhile, gain clarity in PQ but face unpredictability in downstream engineering norms.The auction is a template for how GeM may increasingly shape large-scale renewable procurement, signalling that RA dynamics are now influencing capital-intensive Solar power tenders previously dominated by clause-rich, multi-stage bidding formats.
