One 50 MW PEDA solar tender is about half of Punjab's PM Surya Ghar rooftops

What happenedPEDA/2026-27/18: 50 MW RESCO solar on govt buildings, bids by 29 Oct

PEDA, the Punjab Energy Development Agency, published tender PEDA/2026-27/18 on the state's e-procurement portal on 7 October 2026, as Tender ID 2026_PEDA_176894_1. The portal's title calls it a tentative 50 MWp of grid-connected rooftop solar under the RESCO model, “at various locations in the State of Punjab”, with a payment security mechanism. SolarQuarter and Mercom reported it on 8 October as rooftop and ground-mounted plants with net metering or net billing, and Saur Energy reported on 9 October that the sites are government buildings. We have now read the tender document, downloaded from the portal. It covers government buildings in Punjab: state and local government offices, other government institutions such as schools and health centres, and buildings of government-owned bodies. Its notice says rooftop or ground-mounted plants “anywhere in State of Punjab”, and its scope says the same for government buildings, though its cover title says rooftop only. Bidders must find the buildings themselves, and a department's no objection certificate can bring in other government buildings. The draft power purchase agreement listed in its contents is not attached to the file we downloaded.

RESCO stands for renewable energy service company: the developer pays to put up the plant at the site, and the site buys its power at a fixed rate for a set period, usually 25 years, as the Delhi government's solar portal describes it. In this tender, the developer owns the plants and runs them for 25 years: each power purchase agreement ends 25 years after the date the plant is due to start supplying power, which the tender sets at six months after the agreement is signed. The developer then hands the plant over to the department without charge, still giving at least 80 per cent of its output. Capacity goes to the lowest rate per unit quoted for those 25 years, with one price for all bidders in each size band: other bidders must match the lowest rate to win capacity, and matching does not guarantee it. Once its payment security fund is set up, PEDA pays developers centrally from a fund worth two months of bills, within seven days of a valid invoice, and the developer gives a 1 per cent rebate for that.

PEDA set a pre-bid meeting for 11:30 am on 15 October 2026, at its Chandigarh head office and online. Bids are due by 5 pm on 29 October, and the techno-commercial bids are opened at 10:30 am on 3 November. Bidders pay earnest money of Rs 10 lakh a MW, and a winner gives a performance bank guarantee of Rs 20 lakh a MW within 15 days of its allocation letter, the tender document says. SolarQuarter had reported Rs 10 lakh for the guarantee. The portal lists one earnest money figure, Rs 5 crore (Rs 10 lakh a MW across 50 MW), and says an exemption is allowed. The tender's checklist accepts a micro or small enterprise (MSE) certificate instead of earnest money, without saying which certificate, and elsewhere it says bids without earnest money are rejected. The smallest bid PEDA accepts is 1 MW, and a winner pays PEDA a one-time service charge of Rs 1,350 a kW plus 18 per cent GST within 30 days of each project's work order.

To bid, a firm needs two years in the solar business, and grid-connected plants it supplied, installed and commissioned itself since 1 September 2019 that add up to at least 40 per cent of the capacity it quotes. The tender's experience form counts only commissioning reports verified by a state nodal agency or a government agency, though its eligibility clause also accepts lists verified by the client, including a private one; work orders do not count. The firm's average audited turnover over three of the last four financial years must reach Rs 80 lakh for each MW it quotes. Consortiums are not allowed: the bidder must meet these tests on its own.

In June, PEDA asked for bids on 10 MW at government building sites in Punjab and Chandigarh, Mercom reported. In that tender, PEDA picks the firms and their rates, and government departments pay for the plants; it asked for cells and panels from ALMM List-I and List-II, India's approved lists of panel and cell makers. The October tender is five times the size, and under RESCO the developer pays.

In Jammu and Kashmir, a review held by the UT's Chief Secretary on 7 October heard that JAKEDA, the UT's energy development agency, has proposed solar on 8,000 government buildings under RESCO, 152 MW in all, with work orders placed for 5,185 of them. NHPC has proposed another 1,500 government buildings, 23 MW, Kashmir Observer and Kashmir Images reported. Kashmir Observer said the Chief Secretary asked JAKEDA to speed up RESCO work, noting that progress had “remained slow”. The same review heard that 8,850 government buildings, 95.64 MW, are already solarised under other programmes.