Utility-scale PV

Having achieved 100% household electrification, the PM Modi led government seeking re-election aims to ensure electrification of all railway tracks by 2022 and turn renewable into a popular movement with steps like emphasis on solar farming. Even if the elections spring a surprise, the renewable momentum is unlikely to slow down as no government can afford to ignore the phenomenon.

Like many areas in renewable energy, the operations and maintenance of large-scale solar power plants is becoming an increasingly sophisticated affair. Granular data gathered using hardware such as drones and thermal imaging equipment, in combination with complex analytics software, mean that service providers now have oversight of a plant right down to the performance of individual cells and components. A look at fault detection offers several examples of these trends in action.

The world had more than half a terawatt of PV generation capacity at the end of last year as emerging solar markets picked up the slack caused by Beijing’s subsidy about-turn to the tune of a 20% rise in installations outside China.

Currently, the Mumbai-based solar EPC firm is executing 134.5 MWp of solar projects to be commissioned by September 2019. It expects to surpass cumulative installation of 350 MWp by the end of this financial year.

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.

An emphasis on grid-parity PV has been hammered out in the latest policy document to emerge after several weeks of haggling in Beijing. Chinese analyst AECEA says the success of the subsidy-free effort will hinge on the ability of power companies to transmit and guarantee consumption of the power generated by new projects.

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 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.