India’s government-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has launched a tender to deliver a 100MW/400MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
The firm issued an invitation for bids last week (10 October) for the competitive solicitation, offering a turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the BESS project.
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The 4-hour duration system would be built at the site of NTPC Ramagundam, a 2,600MW coal-fired power plant in Telangana, southern India.
According to bidding documents, the scope of work includes design, engineering, supply, packing and forwarding, transportation, storage, installation and commissioning of the large-scale battery storage system.
The successful EPC contractor would deliver a complete turnkey system including the battery system, battery management system (BMS), energy management system (EMS) and SCADA, power conversion system (PCS), thermal management and other components and balance of plant (BOP), along with taking responsibility for connecting the BESS to the grid via 33kV switchgear, civil works and site acceptance.
The project would have a designed service life of 20 years, assuming one daily cycle of the batteries and the winning bidder would be responsible for ‘comprehensive’ operations and maintenance (O&M) of the NTPC Ramagundam BESS for 10 years.
Public sector firm NTPC is India’s largest generator of power from thermal assets, including 24 coal power plants. However, in line with national renewable energy and decarbonisation policy goals, NTPC is increasing its share of variable solar PV and wind generation.
As such, along with the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), NTPC has been among the main drivers of battery storage adoption in India through its competitive solicitations.
In June, NTPC opened bidding invitations in a tender for a combined 250MW/500MWh of battery storage, split across two sites, one in Madhya Pradesh and one in Maharastra.
Tenders held over the last couple of years from SECI and NTPC, along with those from regional electricity distribution companies (‘discoms’), have driven down the cost of contracts. For instance, a recent SECI tender for solar PV paired with battery storage registered winning bids as low as IR3.41/kWh (around US$0.041/kWh at that time) when results were announced in July.
