Manufacturing

According to the Silver Institute, demand for the precious metal in the solar industry will remain stable up to 2022, despite recent changes in China’s PV policy.

Testing has led to the first certificate of its kind worldwide since a revision of International Electrotechnical Commission Standards in 2016. Accreditation enables Premier Solar to access markets in Latin America, Europe and Africa.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved a plan for projects to be enabled by public bodies in the hope that avoiding competitive procurement will enable it to circumvent WTO rules related to import parity.

“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.