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					</table><p>The <a href="https://powermin.gov.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ministry of Power</a> has amended the standard bidding documents for procuring interstate transmission systems (ISTS) through a tariff-based competitive bidding process to include technical requirements concerning the high voltage (HV)dc and HVac systems.</p>
<p>The Ministry said there was no mention of technical requirements regarding the HVdc and HVac systems in the standard bidding documents issued previously on August 13, 2021.</p>
<p>In consultation with the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the Ministry decided to modify the documents and include the provisions of the aggregate capital cost concerning the HVdc and HVac systems.</p>
<p>A new clause also has been added to the technical criteria, which states that the capital expenditure incurred on projects commissioned at least seven days before the bid submission deadline should be considered.</p>
<p>The capital expenditure should reflect in the audited account books of the technically evaluated entity. If only a part of the project has been commissioned, the capital expenditure on such part of the project should be considered.</p>
<p>The entity must have either executed such projects or held directly or indirectly at least 26% of the shareholding in the company that has executed the project.</p>
<p>Alternatively, as a provision to assess the entity&#8217;s experience in the construction of the project in the infrastructure sector, the entity should have received payments on projects commissioned at least seven days before the bid submission deadline.</p>
<p>Further, only the payments received during the last five financial years will qualify for computing the technical capacity.</p>
<p>Also, in cases where different individual contracts are signed between the same entities for the same project, the cumulative payments received under such individual contracts will be considered for meeting the qualification requirement.</p>
<p>The required aggregate capital cost of projects/aggregate payments received for projects should be calculated as per the table below:</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-55608" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended.png" alt="ISTS Bidding doc amended" width="600" height="274" srcset="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended.png 802w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended-300x137.png 300w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended-768x350.png 768w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended-650x297.png 650w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended-624x285.png 624w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ISTS-Bidding-doc-amended-600x274.png 600w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /></p>
<p>If a project involves more than one voltage level, the requirement will be the total for all voltage levels. However, the minimum required capital cost for projects/ aggregate payments received for projects should be at least ₹5 billion (~$61.02 million).</p>
<p>For individual projects, the requirement will be calculated at 20% of the above-calculated aggregate capital cost of projects/aggregate payments received for the projects. However, for an individual project, the capital cost of projects/payments received for the project should be at least ₹1 billion (~$12.21 million).</p>
<p>In 2021, the Ministry of Power had <a href="https://www.mercomindia.com/power-ministry-favors-bidding-intrastate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> that adopting tariff-based competitive bidding to develop intrastate transmission systems can effectively reduce the burden on the state governments. It would also lead to reduced tariffs leading to consumers&#8217; benefits.</p>
<p>Subscribe to Mercom&#8217;s real-time <a href="https://mercomindia.com/product/mercoms-renewable-energy-regulatory-updates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Regulatory Updates </a>to ensure you don&#8217;t miss any critical updates from the renewable industry.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Rakesh Ranjan</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Rakesh Ranjan,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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<p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Rakesh-Headshot-crop-2.jpg" width="77" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Rakesh Ranjan</strong></a> is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Prior to joining Mercom, he worked in many roles as a business correspondent, assistant editor, senior content writer, and sub-editor with bcfocus.com, CIOReview/Silicon India, Verbinden Communication, and Bangalore Bias. Rakesh holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). <a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/rakesh-ranjan-parashar/" rel="noopener noreferrer">More articles from Rakesh Ranjan.</a></p>
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Ministry Amends Bidding Documents for ISTS-Connected Transmission Projects

<p>India’s largest energy conglomerate <a href="https://www.ntpc.co.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NTPC Ltd</a> has entered into a foreign currency loan agreement with the Japanese Government’s financial institution, the Japan Bank for International Co-operation (<a href="https://www.jbic.go.jp/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">JBIC</a>).</p>
<p>JBIC issued the ¥50 billion (~$482 million) funding under the bank’s Global action for Reconciling Economic growth and Environment preservation (GREEN) initiative.</p>
<p>JBIC will fund 60% of the loan amount, and Japanese commercial banks would fund the remainder under its guarantee. These banks include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Bank of Yokohama Ltd., San-In Godo Bank Ltd., Joyo Bank Ltd., and the Nanto Bank Ltd.</p>
<p>The facility is extended under JBIC’s outreach for projects, which ensures global environmental conservation. NTPC Ltd will utilize the loan proceeds for funding its capital expenditure (CAPEX) for flue gas desulphurization (FGD) and renewable energy projects.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>FGD substantially reduces the sulfur dioxide emissions released in the flue gases by thermal power plants and is a critical step towards environmental sustainability.</p>
<p>In February 2019, the Ministry of Power <a href="https://mercomindia.com/700-million-plan-for-ev-infrastructure-revamp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">proposed</a> a ₹835 billion ($11.70 billion) plan to meet the cost of development of Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) to improve air quality and to conform to new norms notified by the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF &amp; CC) for power plants. Even during her budget 2020 speech, the finance minister <a href="https://mercomindia.com/budget-2020-renewable-220-billion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">said</a> that old thermal plants would be asked to shut down if their emission is above the pre-set norms.</p>
<p>Later in January 2020, the Prime Minister’s office also <a href="https://mercomindia.com/prime-minister-office-carbon-tax-coal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">recommended</a> waiving the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Compensation Cess (earlier called the Clean Energy Cess, which was India’s version of carbon tax) on coal to reduce the financial strain on distribution companies, besides helping the thermal power projects install FGD to curb pollution.</p>
<p>In September, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) also <a href="https://mercomindia.com/thermal-units-pollution-control-retrofit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">floated</a> a staff paper on the issue of compensation mechanism and tariff implications for retrofitting the pollution control equipment in thermal plants.</p>
<p>Director (Finance), NTPC, Anil Kumar Gautam, and the managing executive officer, global head of infrastructure and environment finance group, JBIC, Tanimoto Masayuki, signed the funding agreement through a video conferencing session.</p>
<p>Earlier this year,  NTPC had <a href="https://mercomindia.com/ntpc-raises-syndicated-loan-reduce-emissions-power-projects/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">raised</a> a syndicated loan worth $750 million in Japanese Yen to fund capital expenditure for the installation of flue gas desulphurization systems. NTPC said that the loan was raised under the automatic route of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) regulations and has been fully underwritten by the State Bank of India, Tokyo; Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Singapore; and the Bank of India, Tokyo.</p>
<p>Back in 2018, India and Japan <a href="https://mercomindia.com/india-france-japan-agreement-renewables/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">signed</a> a pact to enable the establishment and promotion of closer and long-term cooperation between the countries in the field of environment protection and management of natural resources.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Harsh Shukla</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Harsh-Shukla-293x300-1-new.jpg" width="99" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Harsh Shukla</strong> </a>is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Previously with Indian Express, he has covered general interest stories. He holds a Masters Degree in Journalism from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune.</p>
<p><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/">More articles from Harsh Shukla.</a></p>
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India’s NTPC Signs $482 Million Loan Agreement with Japan for Renewable Expansion

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