Policy

Fund backed by both governments commits $200 million to the developer, which was itself established by the U.K. government a year ago. Ayana – which boasts a 500 MW solar portfolio – recently enjoyed a $330 million cash boost from public-private joint venture EverSource Capital.

The Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme with an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore over a period of three years will be implemented from April 1, 2019. It envisages setting up of about 2700 charging stations across the country so that at least one charging station is available in a grid of 3×3 km2.

A flying start to the year saw huge volumes of solar cells and modules imported to India but the scale and value of such products fell over the remainder of 2018 and export figures mirrored that trend.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has invited bids for implementation of 97.5MWp grid-connected rooftop solar PV systems on government buildings in different States/Union Territories of India. The projects, under both CAPEX and RESCO models, will be awarded through international competitive bidding. The deadline for bid submission is March 27.

The level of new solar capacity – 8,263 MW – however, was 15.5% down from the 9,782 MW added in 2017 owing to safeguarding duty and GST taking a toll on large-scale PV. While utility-scale solar declined 23% year-on-year, rooftop PV remained a bright spot, and registered impressive growth of 66%.

The Indian government has imposed anti-dumping duty of $114.58/metric ton on tempered solar glass imports originating in or exported from Malaysia. The five-year duty will be applied to products from producers except Xinyi Solar Sdn. Bhd.

Following Tamil Nadu’s plans to purchase 2000 electric buses, Karnataka aims to convert half the government vehicles in Bengaluru to electric by 2019 end. Further, Delhi has allocated Rs 100 crore to electric vehicles in its budget for 2019-20.

There is widespread doubt about whether India can achieve its 100 GW solar target by 2022 but, having started from a base of only 9 MW of capacity 10 years ago, it would be foolish to write off the prospects of this solar superpower.

As against the all-time low of Rs 2.44 per unit recorded in July last year, the latest SECI auction saw the lowest winning tariff of Rs 2.55 per unit offered by ReNew Power. Other winners included Azure Power, Eden Renewable and SoftBank-backed SB Energy.

The higher the cost of a technology, the greater the potential impact concessional finance can make. For a lithium-ion battery project, reducing capital costs by even one percentage point can reduce energy generation costs by $10/MWh.