The stages of a tender, and what ELAP generates in each one

Fourteen stages, from the identified need to final acceptance. The procurement regime distinguishes the single-stage tender — offers and credentials compared in one act — from the multi-stage one, with successive pre-selections. Every plant of any scale goes multi-stage: two envelopes, with technical pre-qualification before the price is opened.

• 1Delivers
• 2Input
• 11Out of scope

1. A1

   Need, preliminary design and official budget

   Out of scope

   WhoContracting authority

   What is being bought and what it is estimated to cost. The official budget later sets the price rejection threshold.

2. A2

   Drafting and approval of the tender documents

   Out of scope

   WhoContracting authorityDto. 1023/2001 art. 11

   General and particular terms plus technical specifications. One of the formal acts the decree requires to be approved before the call.

3. A3

   Call and publication

   Out of scope

   WhoContracting authority

   Mandatory online disclosure: the call, the draft terms, the final terms, the opening record and the award.

4. A4

   Questions and clarification circulars

   Out of scope

   WhoBidder ⇄ authority

   A window with a closing date. Answers are issued as circulars and become part of the tender documents: this is where technical ambiguities get settled, and asking beats assuming.

5. A5

   Bid submission and bid bond

   Out of scope

   WhoBidderDto. 1023/2001 art. 31

   Envelopes are submitted together, sealed or encrypted. The decree requires guarantees but sets no percentage: the regulations and the tender documents do.

6. A6

   Envelope 1 opening — credentials and technical bid

   Delivers

   WhoEvaluation committee

   Company credentials, financial standing and the full technical proposal: descriptive and calculation report, layout, single-line diagram, electrical studies, bill of quantities and works schedule.

   What ELAP generatesThis is where most of the product lives: an 11-section technical report, layout with terrain and shading, single-line diagram with datablocks, the 33 electrical studies with their declared scope, BESS sizing and the bill of quantities. With one declared gap: issued-for-construction drawings are still assembled by hand.

7. A7

   Envelope 1 evaluation and pre-qualification

   Out of scope

   WhoEvaluation committeeDto. 1023/2001 art. 26 inc. a

   A pre-selection opinion. Whoever does not qualify is out without their price ever being opened: that is precisely what separates a multi-stage tender from a single-stage one.

8. A8

   Envelope 2 opening — financial bid

   Input

   WhoEvaluation committee

   Pre-qualified bidders only. Price is compared against the official budget here.

   What ELAP generatesEngineering quantities multiplied by the user's own unit prices: CAPEX by discipline, indirects, OPEX, cash flow and a 12-sheet workbook. ELAP ships zero prices on purpose — with no price book loaded there is no total — and the commercial bid (margins, financing, strategy) stays with the human.

9. A9

   Evaluation opinion, provisional award and challenges

   Out of scope

   WhoCommittee · biddersDto. 1023/2001 art. 30

   The decree delegates to the regulations which acts may be challenged, and within what deadlines.

10. A10

    Award

    Out of scope

    WhoCompetent authority

    A formal administrative act, expressly required by the procurement regime.

11. A11

    Contract execution and performance bond

    Out of scope

    WhoAwardee

    Letter of offer or signed contract, plus the performance bond that replaces the bid bond.

12. A12

    Detailed engineering

    Input

    WhoContractor

    A short, hard contractual deadline. In the PROINGED 02/2026 tender, for instance, it is 45 days from the letter of offer.

    What ELAP generatesThe detail engines are there: cable sizing with all four checks (ampacity, voltage drop, adiabatic short circuit and protection), protection coordination, pile driving, foundations and earthworks. But detailed engineering is delivered as signed drawings and schedules, and the Envelope 1 gap applies here too.

13. A13

    Execution, progress certificates and retention fund

    Out of scope

    WhoContractor · site supervisionLey 13.064

    Progress certificates with the retention fund withheld.

14. A14

    Provisional acceptance, warranty period and final acceptance

    Out of scope

    WhoContracting authorityLey 13.064 arts. 20, 44 y 46

    The law is explicit: every acceptance, whole or partial, is provisional until the warranty period elapses, and during that period the contractor answers for upkeep and repair. Only final acceptance releases the bond and the retention fund.

Eleven stages. CAMMESA's technical procedure literally defines three study stages for connecting, and the developer performs them: the transmission company and CAMMESA review and approve, they do not execute. This ladder always runs, and it is the one that decides whether the project is real.

• 3Input
• 3Gap
• 5Out of scope

1. B1

   Interconnection point and spare capacity at the node

   Gap

   WhoDeveloper

   The first business question is not how much sun there is: it is how many MW are left. Argentina's bottleneck is transmission, and the primary source is the dispatch-priority allocation list CAMMESA publishes.

   What ELAP generatesThere is a regional grid lens and a network rebuild from open data, which place the plant in its electrical neighbourhood. But the allocation list is not ingested, so the first business filter is missing: knowing whether the chosen node is already spoken for.

2. B2

   Stage 1 — Access to transmission capacity

   Input

   WhoDeveloper → ENREPT-1 §3.1 · §4.4

   This is the stage ENRE needs in order to authorise access, and it asks for four deliverables: load flow, short circuit, transient stability and transmission requirements, plus the basic definition of the installations and control equipment. Peak and minimum demand scenarios, and single N-1 contingency.

   What ELAP generatesThree of the four, with the boundary declared. Load flow: own engine, method chosen by topology. Short circuit: screening, with the full version delegated. Transient stability: delegated — the procedure asks for fifth and sixth order models and multi-second runs, which is PSS/E or PSCAD territory. Transmission requirements, which ask for power and energy per six-month seasonal period across four years plus six estimated, are not produced today.

3. B3

   Technical review and submission to the regulator

   Out of scope

   WhoTransmission company + CAMMESAPT-1 §1

   CAMMESA checks that the databases and models are adequate, that the states and scenarios are the required ones and that the results are representative, then issues a technical report on the impact to the system. The review goes to the regulator within fifteen days.

4. B4

   Publication, objections, public hearing and certificate

   Out of scope

   WhoENRE

   The request is published for five days on the regulator's and CAMMESA's sites and two days in a widely circulated newspaper. Ten business days run from the last publication for a third party to file an alternative project or a reasoned objection. If any are filed, a public hearing is called; if not, access is deemed authorised and the public convenience and necessity certificate is issued.

5. B5

   Stage 2 — Detailed technical design

   Input

   WhoDeveloper → transmission companyPT-1 §3.2 · §4.3

   After the regulator's approval and before commissioning. It defines the equipment in detail and the settings of switching and protection devices, requires electromagnetic transient studies when stresses on the existing system increase, and defines stabilising resources, black start and islanding.

   What ELAP generatesIt covers the protection band as screening: coordination with time margin, N-1 ring coordination flagging where directional protection is needed, curve verification against the damage and inrush corridor, and insulation coordination. Electromagnetic transients are delegated: the procedure asks for frequency-dependent line parameters and models up to the 20 kHz range.

6. B6

   Stage 3 — Design and tuning of the control systems

   Gap

   WhoDeveloper → transmission company + CAMMESAPT-1 §3.3

   Five studies: small-signal analysis to assess damping, tuning of the devices that limit voltage disturbances, detailed transient stability, tuning of the voltage and speed regulators, and tuning of the black-start and islanding facilities.

   What ELAP generatesOnly the power-quality band, and as screening: harmonics at the coupling point and flicker, both delegated, plus a resonance sweep that the procedure does not require but which anticipates the problem. Small-signal analysis, regulator tuning and black start are absent, and that is not an oversight: they belong to certified dynamic simulation tools.

7. B7

   Connection agreement

   Input

   WhoDeveloper ⇄ transmission company

   It fixes the point, the conditions and much of the concrete protection requirements. For renewables the procedure imposes no exhaustive list of functions: what does not come from there comes from this agreement, depending on the line topology.

   What ELAP generatesIt contributes the active/reactive envelope at the interconnection point against the agreement's target power factor, the ride-through check against the under- and over-voltage settings, and the percentage impact of connecting or disconnecting the plant.

8. B8

   Protection setting and coordination record

   Gap

   WhoDeveloper → transmission company

   Without it signed there is no first synchronisation. Six itemised, repeatable pieces: the protection list, the automation design, the documentation, the list of studies with number, revision and date, the tests with their results, and the transmission company's opinion. On the transmission side the generator proposes and the transmission company approves; in distribution, the utility imposes.

   What ELAP generatesEvery input is already live — coordination, ring, curve verification, sizing, study identity — and the template is missing. Today the whole industry assembles it by hand. It is the best effort-to-differentiation ratio on this map.

9. B9

   Model homologation and test report

   Out of scope

   WhoManufacturer + developer → CAMMESAPT-4 Anexo I §9.18 · §9.19

   This is where Argentine rigour actually sits, and it is counter-intuitive: there is no European-style equipment type certification. What gets homologated is the model. Two are required — the manufacturer's, compiled and non-editable, and the simulator library one — validated against field records for every control mode, plus a homologation report. The tests call for a single-line diagram, the capability curve and field records every 20 ms over windows of at least 60 s.

10. B10

    Market agent admission and mandatory systems

    Out of scope

    WhoDeveloper → CAMMESA

    Technical aspects plus corporate and commercial documentation are verified, and the operation communication, commercial metering and real-time operation systems must be completed. Admission is formalised by resolution.

11. B11

    Testing, commissioning and commercial operation

    Out of scope

    WhoDeveloper · transmission company · CAMMESA

    The commercial operation date is what starts the contractual clocks: the fifteen years of a storage agreement, the twenty-four months of a dispatch priority.

Four live channels. State tenders for generation closed in 2023 and serve as context, not as a channel: today the State tenders storage, while generation is contracted through a quarterly priority allocation plus a private agreement.

• 2Delivers
• 2Input

1. C1

   MATER — the real channel, and it is not a tender

   Input

   WhoCAMMESA · private partiesRes. 281-E/2017

   CAMMESA does not buy: it allocates dispatch priority in quarterly rounds, and the offtake contract is private and direct with a large user. The sequence is a request within the quarterly window, a tie-break if node capacity falls short, allocation as full or referential — the latter with up to 8% curtailment — posting of the bond, and twenty-four months to reach commercial operation. Once the deadline lapses the priority expires and the bond is called. Historical materialisation is around one third.

   What ELAP generatesThe engineering and financial cases are there: levelised cost, cash flow, itemised operating expenses and sensitivity analysis. With two declared weaknesses: referential-mode curtailment is not deducted from revenue — and it is expected curtailment, not an adverse scenario — and energy is still typed in rather than derived from the loss chain.

2. C2

   AlmaSADI — the one thing the State does tender

   Delivers

   WhoEnergy Secretariat · CAMMESARes. SE 50/2026 · 155/2026

   A storage call with two envelopes: questions, submission and opening of the credentials envelope, evaluation and publication of results, opening of the financial envelope, award and signature. The agreement is signed directly with CAMMESA for fifteen years from commercial operation. The July 2026 award closed at 700.5 MW against 235 bids for 8,338 MW: eleven times oversubscribed, with solar-rooted winners.

   What ELAP generatesA working storage track: usable and nominal sizing with C-rate, converter rating and end-of-life augmentation, DC switchboard, cable schedule, drawn earthing grid, DC short circuit and load flow with the battery in the model. Individual racks with their management as objects, cycle verification and the supervisory layer are missing.

3. C3

   Direct contract with a large user — and the new 300 kW floor

   Input

   WhoPrivate partiesRes. SE 400/2025

   The reform in force since November 2025 creates a term market for every technology and lets any demand of 300 kW or more per point migrate to the wholesale market. That lowers the minimum viable plant size: a product fact, not just a regulatory one.

   What ELAP generatesThis is where the capacity optimiser and the financial module are worth most, because size is the developer's call and not a tender's.

4. C4

   Provincial public works tenders

   Delivers

   WhoProvinces and municipalities

   Here the administrative ladder appears in full, under each province's public works act. Two live cases in 2026: three turnkey plants with storage in Buenos Aires, and the second 15 MW stage of a plant in La Pampa within a plan aiming at 50 MW.

   What ELAP generatesThis is the most direct fit for the product, because the provincial documents ask for exactly the report, the quantities, the single-line diagram and the studies. And it is where the drawings gap hurts most.