Vizag’s green hydrogen transmission tender: the charge waits for all eight elements, the guarantee does not

Adani Energy Solutions Limited was the lowest of the four qualified bidders for India’s Vizag phase I transmission scheme, with a final quoted charge of Rs. 8,564.11 million a year. That one figure is the whole price: bidders quoted a single annual charge for 35 years from the project’s scheduled commercial operation date (Scheduled COD), covering all costs, taxes, duties and levies, and the same charge is payable every year of the agreement’s term. It pays for eight elements that REC Power Development and Consultancy Limited (RECPDCL) tendered together for green hydrogen and ammonia projects in the Vizag area: two new 765/400 kV substations, a STATCOM, three 765 kV double-circuit lines and two 400 kV connections.^{1, 5, 6}

Each element listed all seven others as pre-required, and the tender makes every element wait for them: the RFP considers its charges only after they are commissioned, and the draft agreement issued with the RFP declares its COD only after theirs. Read together, the RFP and the draft agreement make the charge start for the whole scheme or not at all: no element was to be paid for until all eight were commissioned, so the slowest element sets the day the money starts. From then on, the draft agreement pays the charge against availability: with a target of 98%, a month’s charges for the AC system are paid in full at 98% to 98.5%, rise in proportion above that up to a cap at 99.75%, fall in proportion below 98%, and below 95% carry a further deduction.^{1, 2, 4}

The obligations start sooner: within ten days of the letter of intent, the selected bidder had to give the Central Transmission Utility of India Limited (CTU), the Nodal Agency under the draft agreement, a contract performance guarantee of Rs. 196.75 Crore, valid to three months after the Scheduled COD and then extended to three months after the actual COD. In the same ten days it had to buy 100% of the project company, Vizag Power Transmission Limited, the transmission service provider in the draft. The draft agreement gives the provider six months from its Effective Date (the latest of the guarantee given, the project company bought and the agreement signed) to obtain two orders from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC): a transmission licence, and the adoption of its charge.^{1, 2, 3}

Every element had a Scheduled COD of 30 months, which the RFP counts from the Effective Date and the draft agreement’s schedule from the transfer of the project company. Under the draft agreement, a provider that misses an element’s or the project’s Scheduled COD, as extended, pays the Nodal Agency 3.33% of the Monthly Transmission Charges applicable to that element or to the project for each day of delay up to sixty days, and 5% beyond that, “as liquidated damages for such delay and not as penalty”. The draft caps the damages at the amount for six months of delay, after which its default and termination article applies; damages left unpaid come out of the contract performance guarantee, then out of transmission charges. For the project after its COD, the draft defines Monthly Transmission Charges as the annual charge multiplied by the days in the month and divided by the days in the year.^{1, 2, 4}

Put the draft’s two rules together and a late element costs the provider twice: for each day it owes damages to the Nodal Agency, up to the six-month cap, while nothing is paid for the finished elements either.

Four bidders qualified on their technical bids, each bidding alone with 100% equity: Adani Energy Solutions Limited, Dilip Buildcon Limited, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited and Resonia Limited. The charge was then set in an e-reverse auction, with the lowest Initial Offer as the ceiling, in which bidders saw only the lowest offer, not who had made it.^{1, 5} RECPDCL’s result lists final quoted charges, in rupees millions a year, of 8,564.11 for Adani Energy Solutions as L1, and 8,585.58, 10,836.52 and 22,932.00 for L2 to L4, whom it does not name. On ListingMinds’ arithmetic, the two lowest offers were Rs. 21.47 million a year apart.^{1, 6}

A bid bond of Rs. 78.70 Crore stood behind the ten days after the letter of intent: it could be invoked if the selected bidder failed to sign the share purchase and transmission service agreements, give the performance guarantee or buy the project company.^{1, 3} In a disclosure to the stock exchanges dated 14 August 2026, Adani Energy Solutions Limited said it had that day executed a Share Purchase Agreement with RECPDCL for 100% of the equity shares of Vizag Power Transmission Limited, and reported the acquisition as completed.⁷

The draft agreement has the provider apply to CERC for both orders, the licence and the adoption of its tariff under section 63 of the Electricity Act, within five working days of the project company’s acquisition. The draft then allows six months from the Effective Date to obtain them, along with financial closure and the award of the EPC contract, unless completion is affected by force majeure or the Nodal Agency waives the condition in writing. For EPC contractors, the draft puts the award of their contract on the same clock as the two CERC orders.²

With the acquisition reported as completed on 14 August 2026, the draft’s six months cannot have started before that day. As of 22 October 2026, neither RECPDCL’s tender page, Adani Energy Solutions’ disclosure nor CERC’s records of the hearings of 29 September 2026 and 16 October 2026 gave the date of the letter of intent or of the agreement’s signing. The end of the draft’s six months cannot yet be dated from those documents.^{2, 7, 8, 9, 10}

If a condition is still unmet three months after the time allowed, the draft requires the provider to furnish to the Nodal Agency an additional contract performance guarantee of Rs. 19.68 Crore every month until all are met. If fulfilment slips beyond nine months from the Effective Date without that additional guarantee, or beyond twelve months with it, the draft lets the Nodal Agency, subject to its force majeure provisions, terminate on at least seven days’ notice; the provider then owes liquidated damages of Rs. 196.75 Crore, the full original performance guarantee, recovered by invoking it. Unless a late order counts as force majeure or the Nodal Agency waives the condition, the draft thus makes the regulator’s pace the provider’s risk.^{1, 2}

Vizag Power Transmission Limited’s two petitions, 514/TL/2026 for the licence and 515/AT/2026 for the adoption of the charges discovered in the bidding, were heard on 29 September 2026. Its representative said the newspaper notice had been published and CTU had sent its recommendation on the licence; CERC admitted both petitions and issued notice to the respondents. In the adoption case it asked RECPDCL to furnish within a week the Cost Committee Report, the Bid Evaluation Committee’s minutes, the details of the complete bidding process and the computation of the levelized tariff, including its comparison with the tariff the successful bidder quoted. What CERC asked for put the numbers behind the winning charge before it, not only the record of how that charge was reached.⁸

CERC heard both petitions again on 16 October 2026, and the project company asked for them to be reserved for orders. CTU had still not filed what CERC directed on 29 September 2026: the minutes of its own consultation meeting of 24 August 2026 on evolving transmission schemes in the Southern Region (the 49th CMETS-SR). They had not yet been issued, CTU said; CERC gave it ten more days to file them once issued, and said both petitions would be listed for another hearing on 10 November 2026. As of 22 October 2026, CERC’s orders page showed no order on either.^{10, 11, 12}

The grid and T&D guide covers grid procurement more widely.

ListingMinds, “Vizag’s green hydrogen transmission tender: the charge waits for all eight elements, the guarantee does not”, 29 October 2026. https://www.listingminds.com/energy/field-notes/vizag-green-hydrogen-transmission-tender