Manufacturing

“We urge the government to take swift action in launching the National Energy Storage Mission in order to support the development of an R&D and manufacturing ecosystem for energy storage and electric vehicles,” said Rahul Walawalkar, president of the India Energy Storage Alliance.

For the purchase, the government of Tamil Nadu is seeking a loan from German state-owned development bank KfW, at an interest rate of 2%, according to reports.

To encourage Make In India, the Indian government has slashed the customs duty on electric vehicle (EV) parts and components to 10-15%. Earlier, EV parts and components imported for assembly in India attracted duties of between 15 and 30%. The move will eventually make EVs cheaper and encourage their adoption in India.

India’s Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has tendered 1.5 GW worth of solar cell and module manufacturing capacity linked to ISTS connected solar PV power plants for an aggregate capacity of 3 GW. The plants are to be developed on ‘build own operate’ basis. The maximum tariff payable to the project developers has been fixed at Rs 2.75/kWh for 25 years.

A week after rejecting the sole bid received from Azure Power, India has trimmed the size of its first ever manufacturing-linked solar tender by more than two-thirds.

High solar irradiance and few cloudy days are ideal for solar. Fine dust and extreme heat is not – particularly when it comes to power electronics. As the distributed generation market segment emerges across hot climates, extreme conditions are a challenge inverter suppliers are grappling with.

At the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement Joint Committee meeting, the South Korean government urged China to lift import measures against its polyoxymethylene, optical fiber, polysilicon and grain-oriented electrical steel. China imposed duties on polysilicon from South Korea and the United States in July 2013.

Delhi-based solar developer Azure Power had bid for a 2 GW project on a single site, as well as 600 MW of manufacturing capacity. According to reports, the government has rejected the bid, however, stating that the quoted price is unreasonable.

The Indian government may impose anti-dumping duty of US$ 114.58 per tonne on tempered solar glass imports from Malaysia in order to provide a level playing field to domestic manufacturers.

The fate of the clutch of 500 MW-plus projects due to break ground this year could determine whether such ambitious schemes have a viable future, says Wood Mackenzie in its solar 2019 forecast. And the Indian market should brace for consolidation, add the analysts, because of aggressive reverse-auction tariff pricing.