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The solar industry seeks tailor-made financing options for end consumers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro SMEs (MSMEs), in addition to supportive and stable government policies to ensure speedier progress.

India Ratings and Research has maintained a stable-to-negative outlook on India’s power sector for FY2019-20 owing to issues such as slower resolution of the stressed [coal based thermal] capacity, domestic coal unavailability, and reluctance of DISCOMs to sign long-term power purchase agreements. The outlook is not sunny for solar either.

The Indian government may impose anti-dumping duty of US$ 114.58 per tonne on tempered solar glass imports from Malaysia in order to provide a level playing field to domestic manufacturers.

Kolkata based Emami Group has transferred the solar power division of its cement unit to Emami Power, which aims to build over 300 MW of solar power capacity over the next three years.

The Indian Ministries of External Affairs and Power, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), organized the South Asia Power Summit 2018, held recently in New Delhi. The daylong conference highlighted that diversity of energy resources in South Asian countries brings the opportunity to provide affordable, low-carbon energy in the region. The business case for enhanced energy trading in the region, and challenges faced in inter-country electricity trading were important elements of this discussion.

While the timelines for PV power plant execution and completion of manufacturing facilities are now more realistic, production obligations – especially for capacity utilization – need to be revisited.

As the currency continued to fall today, analysts are concerned developers will see any savings from falling module prices disappear, and lenders may get nervy, putting the national solar target in grave doubt.

The programme allows the installation of solar roof atop apartment blocks, which otherwise could not install such systems. Potential in the area is around 15 MW, of which 6 MW have been signed up for already. Another 5 MW should be developed in this second phase of the project.

Despite political hurdles in key markets including China and Japan, Asia remains highly active. This year, 59 GW of solar is expected to be installed and due to further system price declines, a phase-out of subsidy schemes can be offset.

Big players such as Acme, ReNew, Adani, Azure, Hero Future and Aditya Birla Solar are likely to stay away from procurement which requires 3 GW annual manufacturing commitment, says industry insider Gopal Lal Somani.