Highlights

The National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) is continuing to step up its efforts to ensure the quality of large scale solar projects. The body is now looking for stakeholder input into its new best practice guidelines for PV power plant projects, as a part of its ongoing Quality Taskforce initiative.

The GCL System chief executive made comments that fly in the face of an expected solar gold rush in China that analysts predict will start this month. Though rising overseas demand will address overcapacity fears, according to Luo, the soundbite is sure to chill PV boardrooms across the world’s biggest solar market.

The chargers will be set up in six cities (Agra, Bengaluru, Goa, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Shimla) and along Delhi-Jaipur-Agra-Delhi and Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai highways.

The U.S. company claims its 300 MW manufacturing plant in Hyderabad will deliver a fully integrated and customizable system solution of solar panels, lithium battery packs and controllers under a single roof.

The Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of State of Israel will fund joint research on advanced materials for next-generation solar energy utilization and energy storage. The deadline for the submission of proposals is December 5.

October 16 is the bidding deadline for rooftop and ground-mounted solar plants that are to set up in various sizes—10 KWp or smaller, 11-100 KWp, above 100 kWp and combinations thereof—within consumer premises across the state.

Choosing the best material to cover the backside of a module has long been a contentious issue, and the rise of bifacial technology has brought further complexity to the debate. With transparent backsheet materials quickly making their way to market, the Intersolar Europe edition of the Quality Roundtable event series sought to bring some clarity to the rear side of modules, and illuminate some of the issues that can occur in the field – both with glass-glass and glass-backsheet modules.

In addition to accelerated deployment of battery based energy storage systems, the country needs to look at a combination of technologies to manage peak electricity demand whilst maintaining grid stability at least overall cost.

Two related challenges have become barriers to increasing penetration levels for rooftop solar: the hosting capacity of the grid, and the need to maintain stability during periods of peak demand. The Future PV Roundtable, held alongside The smarter E event in Munich, looked at how distributed energy resources such as PV and battery storage, along with demand-side flexibility, can help to meet these challenges – all thanks to VPPs.

Decentralized model of solar project development has avoided the need to spend huge amounts on grid upgrades in India’s newest state. With EV charging plans advancing Telangana now intends to change policy to reflect falling solar costs.