Bids submitted by developers to set up solar energy plants were finally opened at the Vidyut Soudha here on Tuesday after the exercise was stopped midway following a petition filed in the High Court by one of the bidders.

The bid submitted by the petitioner, who had complained to the High Court that he could not upload his application online due to “a technical snag” from the other end, was also opened. The court asked the committee constituted with officials from power utilities to process the tenders, to postpone the opening to Monday. Complying with the court order, the bids were opened on Tuesday — a day later.

The response from the developers was so overwhelming that a total of 184 bids were received to set up plants at 110 out of 161 listed sites in the State, envisaging a total installed capacity of 1,750 MW as against the target of 1,000 MW fixed by the government.

An official said a sum of Rs.13,125 crore was likely to be invested on these plants, calculated at the rate of Rs.7.5 crore per MW in view of the high cost of equipment needed to set up the units. He said the lowest price offered was Rs.6.5 per unit and the highest Rs.15.99.

Once the bids were finalised, the power distribution company covering the site would sign formal power purchase agreements (PPA) with the developer. The price, at which the power would be purchased from solar plants, however, was subject to the approval of the AP State Electricity Regulatory Commission. The officials said the plants were likely to come up fast as the Centre was “offering fabulous incentives and subsidies” to establish solar plants. These plants, on being operational, were expected to give some relief to AP Transco which was struggling to meet the demand ever going up.