Residential PV

The power minister’s proposed move is a step in the right direction towards meeting the 40 GW rooftop solar target as it removes the financing hurdle for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Solar trees—like the ones at The National Salt Satyagraha Memorial in Gujarat—are set to make their way into the residential complexes of central government employees as the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) looks to harness solar energy to the maximum extent possible.

Easy access to finance topped the agenda of the minister’s meeting with various stakeholders, wherein issues related to land acquisition and Goods and Services Tax (GST) were also discussed.

Solar installations picked up significantly in the January-March period, with 1.89 GW of utility-scale PV projects providing 76% of the quarterly total. Rooftop PV accounted for the remaining 590 MW of new capacity additions. Looking ahead, Bridge to India expects the uptrend to continue, as the first quarter ended with a record amount of capacity in the national pipeline.

Solar installations fell 49% year-on-year in the first three months of 2019, with rooftop PV additions plunging as installers struggled to secure approval for projects immediately before the general election, according to new statistics from Mercom India Research.

The Mahindra Group cleantech firm will continue to have majority 51% stake in its subsidiary Marvel Solren, with Mitsui owning the balance. Currently, Marvel operates four distributed solar projects in India with a combined capacity of 16 MW, which the two partners aim to expand to 150 MW by 2023.

Following Indian utility National Thermal Power Corp.’s proposal for PV projects in International Solar Alliance member countries, the organization has invited bids from companies in such nations with comparable credentials and experience, as long as they own at least 250 MW of solar capacity.

The I-SMART program aims to aggregate demand for 1 GW rooftop solar systems across four states and two union territories. It simplifies rooftop solar installation by providing a range of services both to the partner installers and prospective customers on a single-window web portal.

The Himachal Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (HPERC) has followed the lead of the authorities in Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Maharashtra in setting generic levelised tariffs for PV projects.

With Narendra Modi’s government stunning pollsters with another huge victory, the solar industry expects renewable power momentum to be maintained with steps including anti-dumping duty on solar module imports, a national policy for rooftop solar and an emphasis on easing private-sector participation in the power sector.