Highlights

The Indian government has created a strong balance between industrial policy as well as trade policy, which provides companies like First Solar an ideal opportunity to establish their manufacturing facilities in India, according to First Solar chief executive officer Mark Widmar.

The State-owned hydropower producer has landed one-fifth of the 5 GW grid-connected solar capacity tendered under the second phase of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) Scheme. It won the project by quoting a viability gap funding (VGF) requirement of INR 44.72 lakh per MW.

Multiple factors can affect the lifespan of a residential battery energy storage system. We examine the life of batteries in Part 3 of our series.

Rising efficiencies and the plummeting cost of solar modules over the past few years, recent months notwithstanding, are leading innovators toward ideas that may look unusual in the current tracker-dominated world of large-scale solar parks. Advocates of the new approaches argue that they leave traditional models looking decidedly flat by comparison.

Adani and Reliance New Energy, along with Jindal India Solar and Shirdi Sai Electricals, are the top scorers in the shortlist released for the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme for high-efficiency module manufacturing. The list also includes 14 other companies vying for the incentives. The PLI requirement quoted by the shortlisted applicants will decide the beneficiaries.  

The Indian solar manufacturer currently has 750 MW of cell and module factory in Hyderabad and plans to more than triple this capacity with the addition of 2 GW mono PERC. The capacity augmentation is planned over the next two years with an investment of INR 1,200 crore. The equity capital from GEF will support the expansion.

Recovering valuable raw materials from end-of-life solar panels and batteries presents a great opportunity for India to secure their future availability as the nation chases its ambitious renewable energy targets.

U.S. start-up EnerVenue has secured funding to build a gigafactory to produce nickel-hydrogen batteries for large scale renewable and storage applications. The battery has an efficiency ranging from 80 to 90%, depending on the cycle rate, and its energy density per square foot is equal to, or better than lithium-ion batteries, according to the company.

The diversified business group with a 25 GW renewable energy portfolio will invest US$20 billion across renewable energy generation, component manufacturing, transmission, and distribution over the next ten years.

The state has reached an installed solar capacity of 7,738 MW. With this, it has replaced Karnataka to become the PV energy leader in India.