SECI Announces 120 MW Solar and 60 MW/240 MWh Battery Storage Project in Bihar

The Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI), a Navratna enterprise under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has issued a Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) for a 120 MW (AC) solar photovoltaic project paired with a 60 MW/240 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Aurangabad district, Bihar. Published on SECI’s website on 9 October 2026, the notice is the company’s second Bihar-specific solar tender in under two weeks, underlining a growing focus on storage-backed renewable capacity in eastern India.

Project at a Glance

Owner: Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited
Tender number: SECI/C&P/OP/11/0008/26-27
Solar capacity: 120 MW (AC)
Storage capacity: 60 MW / 240 MWh BESS (four-hour duration)
Location: Aurangabad district, Bihar
Scope: Design, engineering, supply, construction, erection, testing and commissioning, followed by five years of operation and maintenance (O&M)
Bid platforms: Bharat Electronic Tender portal, Central Public Procurement Portal (CPPP) and SECI’s website

What the Tender Covers

This is an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract, not a developer-mode (build-own-operate) tender. SECI is the project owner, and the selected contractor will design, build and commission the integrated solar-plus-storage plant before maintaining it for five years after commissioning.

According to the NIT, the full bidding documents will be issued shortly. Interested bidders must register on the Bharat Electronic Tender portal, log in, and download the official copy of the documents; only bidders who have done so will be eligible to upload a response. Key commercial and technical parameters, including earnest money deposit, eligibility criteria, domestic content requirements and bid submission deadlines, will be specified in the detailed tender documents. SECI has provided +011 24666 270 as the contact number for queries.

Understanding the Configuration

The BESS is sized at half the solar plant’s AC capacity in power terms, with four hours of storage. A 60 MW/240 MWh system can deliver its full rated output for four hours, which allows a meaningful share of midday solar generation to be shifted into the evening, when demand peaks and solar output falls to zero. Viewed from the generation side, 240 MWh is equivalent to two hours of the solar plant running at its full 120 MW output.

This 2:1 solar-to-storage power ratio with four-hour duration is consistent with the configuration SECI has used in its larger interstate transmission system (ISTS) tenders, such as SECI-ISTS-XX, which combined 2,000 MW of solar capacity with 1,000 MW/4,000 MWh of energy storage.

A Second Bihar Project in Two Weeks

The Aurangabad NIT follows SECI’s tender of 30 September 2026 for a 60 MW (AC) ISTS-connected solar PV power plant at Gaya, Bihar (Tender No. SECI/C&P/OP/11/0007/26-27). That tender also covers design, engineering, supply, construction, erection, testing, commissioning and O&M, and is being conducted online with an e-reverse auction. Its published schedule is:

Pre-bid meeting: 15 October 2026
Online bid submission deadline: 12 November 2026
Offline bid submission deadline: 16 November 2026
Bid opening: 17 November 2026
Tender fee: INR 25,000 plus applicable GST

Taken together, the two neighbouring south Bihar districts of Gaya and Aurangabad account for 180 MW (AC) of new solar capacity and 240 MWh of battery storage now under tender by SECI.

Building on SECI’s Own-Project Portfolio

Both projects expand SECI’s role as an asset owner alongside its function as a renewable energy implementing agency and intermediary power procurer. SECI currently owns and operates renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 122.7 MW. Its flagship solar-plus-storage asset is the 100 MW solar PV plant with a 40 MW/120 MWh BESS at Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, which has been commissioned. In June 2026, SECI also tendered the EPC of a 70 MW ISTS-connected solar project paired with a 25 MW/50 MWh BESS at Ramagiri in Andhra Pradesh.

At 240 MWh, the Aurangabad storage component would hold twice the energy capacity of the Rajnandgaon BESS.

Why Storage Matters for Bihar

Bihar’s power system faces a mismatch between daytime supply and evening demand. The Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) addressed this in its order approving Bihar State Power (Holding) Company Limited’s procurement of 200 MW of solar power with a 100 MW/400 MWh energy storage system through SECI’s ISTS Tranche-XV scheme. The order recorded that the state has surplus power during solar hours, while its supply portfolio is expected to remain in deficit by as much as 2,100 MW during peak hours.

The same order cited the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) Long-Term Resource Adequacy Plan for Bihar, which suggested adding 7,099 MW of solar capacity and 5,518 MW of battery storage by 2033-34 to meet renewable purchase obligations. CEA has since published an updated Resource Adequacy Plan (Generation) for BSPHCL covering 2026-27 to 2036-37. Four-hour solar-plus-storage projects such as Aurangabad are designed to store daytime solar energy and dispatch it during the evening peak.

What Comes Next

With the NIT published, the detailed tender documents for the Aurangabad project are expected on the Bharat Electronic Tender portal, CPPP and SECI’s tender section. These will set out the bid schedule, pre-bid meeting, site visit arrangements and qualification requirements. EPC contractors, module and battery suppliers, and power conversion system manufacturers will be watching closely, as the project combines utility-scale solar with a sizeable four-hour storage system under a single contract.