Kanti Bijlee Utpadan Nigam Limited (KBUNL), a wholly owned subsidiary of NTPC Limited, has invited bids for setting up of 500 KW of rooftop solar PV capacity on various buildings of its plant for Muzaffarpur Thermal Power Project in Bihar. The project will be awarded based on domestic competitive bidding. The deadline for bid submission is May 8.

With Narendra Modi being tipped to triumph again in the current Indian elections, Indian solar capacity is expected to grow robustly, at 15.3% per year, on the back of continued strong government support.

Storage companies are working with solar developers towards strategic alliances, says Naveen Sharma, Vice President-Sales & Strategic Planning, Exicom Power Solutions—an electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure developer that has set up an R&D centre in Bengaluru to facilitate development of lithium-ion battery packs. In an interview with pv magazine, Sharma also talked about the current scenario for Li-ion battery storage manufacturing in India and strategies to succeed.

Avaada Energy has raised the funds from the Asian Development Bank and European development institutions. The PV developer will use the amount to finance 2.4 GW of the 5 GW of solar capacity it hopes to secure over the next two years.

The joint venture has started a prototype manufacturing operation in Pune, India, to design, engineer, manufacture and supply Lithium-ion battery packs for 4-wheeler electric vehicles in India.

The 300 MW solar plant at the Pavagada Solar Park, located in Tumkur district of Karnataka, is ReNew Power’s largest solar plant commissioned in terms of capacity till date. It is said to be the first utility-scale solar plant in India to use high-efficiency mono PERC solar modules.

Suzlon Energy is selling Shreyas Solarfarms and Aalok Solarfarms to Ostro Energy—a wholly owned subsidiary of independent power producer ReNew Power—for Rs 19.87 crore and Rs 9.93 crore, respectively.

ACME Solar installed the largest utility-scale solar capacity in 2018. It also had the largest project pipeline at the end of 2018, closely followed by SB Energy and Azure Power. While modules from China’s ZnShine were used the most, the imposition of the safeguard duty helped domestic manufacturers to capture a larger share of the market compared to 2017, according to clean energy consulting firm Mercom Communications.

India’s Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued guidelines for solar PV inverter manufacturers to get their products tested and approved by Bureau of India Standards (BIS) certified labs. These guidelines apply to off-grid, grid-tie and hybrid inverters of capacities up to 150 KW.

“This case is an economic dispute arising from complicated domestic and foreign situations such as India’s 25% security tax and China’s ‘May 31’ Policy. It is not our company’s unilateral breach of contracts. Any economic disputes arising from commercial activities shall be handled by the court and relevant judicial institutions,” said the Chinese PV module supplier a week after India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) issued advisory against procuring solar modules from CSUN.