Afghanistan's Ministry of Energy and Water (MEW) has awarded a total of 50 MW solar hybrid projects to Chinese and Indian companies. A 40 MW project will be developed by China's Shuangdeng Group, while rights to develop a 10 MW project has been awarded to India's Waaree Energies.
Shuangdeng Group is a battery energy storage system company. The contract is valued at $59.7 million. The Chinese company will design, supply and install the hybrid on-grid solar PV power plant at Hisar-e-Shahi Industrial Park in Nangarhar province.
India's Waaree Energies has been selected to design, supply and install the 10 MW hybrid on-grid solar PV plant in Khost province.
If any bidder has any objection to the award of contract to Waaree, it can approach MEW with their applications within 7 days from the date of announcement, which in this case will be May 27, 2018. If no objections are received by then, MEW says it will award the capacity to Waaree.
MEW had launched tenders for these two projects along with a 5.5 MW hybrid PV plant for Daykundi province in September 2017 (Ten Afghanistan Issues Three PV Hybrid Tenders).
In February 2018, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) invited bids for a 340 kW hydro-solar mini-grid project in Afghanistan with storage facility (see Hydro-Solar Mini-Grid Tender In Afghanistan). This will be located in Nanarghar province.