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The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a public sector undertaking under the aegis of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has issued a tender for setting up 500 MW/1000 MWh standalone battery energy storage systems (BESS) in India.

It is a first of its kind tender in the country in such a category which is aimed to provide power distribution companies with storage facilities to be used on an "on-demand" basis.

This tender marks the first tranche of the government's immediate target of setting up 4,000 MWh of battery storage capacity as part of achieving increased penetration of renewable energu in the national grid.

"The tender has been issued under the Standard Bidding Guidelines issued by the Ministry of Power in March 2022. The total capacity to be set up under the RfS is 1000 MWh (500 MW x 2hrs), which will constitute two projects of 500 MWh (250 MW x 2 hrs) capacity each," a New and Renewable Energy Ministry statement said.

The projects will be installed in the vicinity of the Fatehgarh-III Grid-Substation of the ISTS network in Rajasthan.

The buying entities will be offered the storage capacity to charge and discharge the same daily through renewable energy power, as per their energy shifting requirements, the statement said.

The projects will be set up on a 'Build-Own-Operate' basis. The term of the projects will be 12 years, with the scheduled commissioning date being 18 months from the date of signing of the Battery Energy Storage Purchase Agreement (BESPA). Financial Closure is to be achieved within 12 months of the signing of BESPA.