Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has invited bids for procuring 7.1 million 158.75 mm diamond wire saw (DWS) multicrystalline silicon solar wafers.

The last date to submit bids is November 8, 2021. The bids will be opened on the same day.

Bidders are not needed to furnish any earnest money deposit. However, for a contract value above ₹2.5 million (~$33,395), the successful bidder must submit 10% of the contract value as a performance guarantee within ten days from the date of issuance of the letter of award.

The wafers should be free from surface stains, watermarks, chips, pinholes, and breakages.

The wafers must be packed in a pack of 100 in carton boxes and delivered in five tranches within 22 weeks from the purchase order date. In the case of delayed delivery, the successful bidder must pay 0.5% of the total contract per week, subject to a maximum of 10% of the total contract value as liquidated damages.

To participate in the bidding process, the bidders should have a minimum manufacturing capacity of 10 million pieces of DWS multicrystalline silicon wafers annually. They must have supplied 1 million pieces of DWS multicrystalline silicon wafers to any Indian cell manufacturer or manufacturer from other than the vendor’s country of origin during the last two years.

The original equipment manufacturer must have an in-house testing facility with the requisite workforce to perform regular in-process and finished product testing.

BHEL has earmarked 25% of the tendered quantity for micro and small (MSEs) enterprise suppliers. Of this quantity, 6.25% would be for procurement by MSEs owned by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe entrepreneurs and 3% by women-owned MSEs.

If the MSE vendor quotes within the price band of the lowest bid (L1) + 15% and accepts the lowest offer, the vendor would be allowed to supply 25% of the tendered quantity.

Earlier this month, BHEL invited bids to enter into a memorandum of understanding with vendors for procuring silicon wafers for manufacturing solar cells to meet the annual module manufacturing capacity of 200 MW.

According to Mercom’s India Solar Tender Tracker, BHEL has invited tenders to procure 450,000 multicrystalline silicon wafers to date.

Harsh Shukla 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.

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