India

Tariff ceilings, safeguard duties, a falling rupee and mandated manufacturing capacity turned 2018 into a year of annulled tenders, and no shows by bidders.

2018 has been a volatile year for the Indian solar industry, with several hits and misses. They include the government yo-yoing over safeguard duties, annulled tenders, confusion over Goods & Services Tax (GST), record installation figures, yet predictions that the country will not meet its ambitious target of achieving 100 GW solar capacity by 2022.

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The state has withdrawn its transmission charges waiver for solar projects bigger than 500 MW in capacity. While unhappy developers are protesting, industry experts deem it sensible for the government to apply a limit to – and possibly plan a phased withdrawal of – incentives for the solar sector.

The Indian Government has mandated that preference be given to domestically manufactured renewable energy products in public procurement. As per the order, 100% of the solar modules for grid-connected solar power projects must be domestically manufactured.

For India to achieve its 2030 dreams of fully electrifying its passenger vehicle market, and growing a leading manufacturing industry, its electric vehicle program must be accelerated. Meanwhile, if Intersolar India 2018 had to nominate the most-repeated word at the event, “storage” would win hands down.

With a fleet of nearly 70 drones and a software investment of US$1 million, Ahmedabad-based Gensol Group is rolling out a high-tech digital solution for monitoring solar plants, which aims to swiftly identify problems and reduce downtime.

Styrofoam and reinforced concrete as a substrate, floating breakwaters and wave attenuators, robust anchoring, robotic cleaning and on-site manufacturing are just some of the buzzwords surrounding floating solar’s future. With 1 GW of installed floating capacity worldwide (as on November 30, 2018) and an optimistic prediction of 5 GW by 2022, this branch of solar energy is gaining immense momentum.

The Indian Government plans to tender 60 GW of solar and 20 GW of wind capacity by March 2020. This would complete the planned auctions for its targets of 100 GW solar and 60 GW wind installations by 2022, leaving two years for project execution, according to an year-end review by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).