United States

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and Ford has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to co-develop electric vehicles for India and emerging markets. To support Mahindra’s EV roadmap, the company had signed an agreement with LG Chem for its lithium-ion batteries.

World’s second-largest EPC, a Mumbai-headquartered company will base their U.S. operations in Arizona. It launches with a 50 MW portfolio as EPC and/or co-development service provider.

Researchers in the U.S. have confirmed the existence of a novel state of the element manganese, first proposed in a journal dating from 1928, which could allow for the development of low-cost, high performance batteries for grid level, and other energy storage applications.

50 projects will be signed on March 11, 2018 during ISA Solar Summit, and 71 will be signed on April 20, 2018 at RE-Invest summit. Now, with five new countries, Madagascar, Gabon, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Uganda, the number of nations to have ratified the International Solar Alliance (ISA) framework agreement has reached 26.

With the current World Trade Organizations (WTO’s) decision, it appears that the solar domestic content dispute between India and the U.S. has stepped forward. Last three-four hearing was just stuck in U.S. rejections of India’s compliance statement.

A team of scientists from the U.S. University of Rochester has developed a compound which it says could double the effectiveness of redox flow batteries, and ‘transform the energy storage landscape’.

U.S.-based Rockefeller Foundation has partnered with cKers Finance, a New-Delhi based finance company, to help develop the decentralized renewable energy (DRE) sector in India. cKers will invest $50 million across DRE and sustainable energy portfolio in the near term.

The United States blocks India’s request for a panel to investigate Indian compliance to solar cells ruling. Thus, the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) has deferred the establishment of a compliance panel. Moreover, U.S. reserves its right to obtain WTO authorization to take countermeasures against India, but there is desire to find a bilateral resolution.

India is calling for a special meeting of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), to be held on February 9, to consider its request to resolve the disagreement between India and the U.S.

The European Union as well as Brazil, China and Japan indicate their support for India in the WTO dispute against the U.S. Consensus appears to be that trade retaliatory measures are unjustified. The DSB chair concluded by noting the matter has been referred to arbitration in line.