Technology

With Karnataka withdrawing open access waivers and the policy not replicated elsewhere, corporate buyers are increasingly favouring group captive projects that are exempt from the cross-subsidy surcharge—the largest and most unpredictable component of grid charges for open access power.

Australian and Indian scientists have developed a method of manufacturing soluble graphene in a cost-effective and eco-friendly way from one of Australia’s most common resources, gum trees.

Global bids are now invited to set up 2 GW of solar manufacturing capacity linked to 6 GW of inter-state-connected solar power projects. The projects—to be developed on ‘build-own-operate’ basis—shall be awarded through tariff-based competitive bidding followed by e-reverse auction. Tariff ceiling is fixed at Rs 2.75/kWh for a period of 25 years. Bidding closes on July 26.

Situated in Sirsa district, the group captive solar project is in line with CleanMax Solar’s mission to more than double its customer base from 120 corporates to 300 by 2022.

Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited has invited global bids for setting up of an aggregate ground-mounted solar capacity of 57 MW at three sites in the state. Of the total capacity, 30 MW shall come up in Faridabad, and plants of 15 MW and 12 MW at two separate sites in Yamuna Nagar. Bidding closes on July 17.

Citing huge losses to solar power developers, the lobby group has urged state-owned utility Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited not to arbitrarily curtail generation from solar power projects that are in any case ‘must run.’

There is a sense in the PV cell and module market at the mid stage of 2019 that the push towards high-efficiency cell architectures is accelerating. This makes the case for half-cut cells in a module more compelling, and the quality of the cut edge vital – argue laser process suppliers.

The tariffs are slightly above Rs2.48/kWh seen in March procurement but still fairly below the levels hit in Maharashtra and Gujarat auctions recently—reaffirming the state’s attractiveness to PV developers.

Wasteful use of water for solar panel cleaning is posing these areas to a high level of water risk. To justify its environment-friendly tag, the industry needs to replace manual cleaning with technologies providing water-efficient solutions.

India’s Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has invited bids from domestic and international players for setting up of small grid-interactive solar plants ranging from 500 KW to 2 MW at lands of state-owned utilities. The cumulative capacity, to be installed in turnkey mode, is 40 MW for Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh each and 20 MW for Jharkhand. The state-run energy service company is also mulling to install an aggregate 200 MW of grid-connected solar rooftop across 5,000 state-owned buildings in Maharashtra.