Manufacturing

Delinking the battery (which accounts for 30-40% of the total vehicle cost) will bring the upfront cost of the electric 2-wheelers (2W) and 3-wheelers (3W) to be lower than internal combustion engine counterparts. The battery could be provided separately by the original equipment manufacturer or the energy service provider. 

Chinese PV module maker JinkoSolar unveiled its new 610 W Tiger Pro TR solar modules on Saturday at the SNEC PV Power Expo in Shanghai. Furthermore, bifacial module specialist Jolywood launched the Niwa Super module series, which has a power output ranging from 570 W to 615 W and a reported efficiency of 22.1%.

August 21 is the deadline to submit bids for supply of 4.50W (4-/5-busbar), 4.60W (5-busbar) and 4.67W (5-busbar) multi-crystalline solar cells. Only Indian manufacturers are eligible to participate.

The government is acquiring lithium mines abroad to ensure raw material availability for electric vehicle battery production. Among other technology alternatives for EVs, it is looking at developing indigenous hydrogen fuel cells with hydrogen derived from biomass.

U.S. scientists have found a new ‘de-doping’ process in perovskite solar cells that could cut production costs and produce better devices. They have used this to fabricate a mini-module with 17.8% efficiency.

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi have taken a close look at the potential impact of growing volumes of PV waste and conducted surveys which suggest a lot more work is needed from manufacturers and policymakers to develop management systems for end-of-life PV products.

Australian scientists have identified seven methods to prevent PV losses when overvoltage-induced inverter disconnections occur. The methods include battery storage, reactive power inverters, export limits, distribution static synchronous compensators, the replacement of old conductors in power grids, load reconfiguration, and dynamic voltage restoration.

Bids are invited from Indian manufacturers to supply 72-cell, 325Wp polycrystalline solar modules made using domestically manufactured cells. August 20 is the last date to lodge the interest.

The import duty will be levied on Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai solar cells – whether assembled into modules or not – at 14.9% from today and falling to 14.5% in six months’ time. Malaysian products are exempted as their imports have fallen dramatically since the duty was imposed, in July 2018.

With this, the NYSE-listed developer has been awarded 4 GW in total as part of an auction won in December, which is one of the largest solar projects ever awarded globally.