Legal

The Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) observed that Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC), in its Solar Tariff Order dated March 28, 2016, determined the tariff/capital cost without cogent or adequate reasoning while also being divergent from its own regulations.

Up to 70% of prospective customers have shied away from owning a rooftop solar system due to lack of readily available information on how to assess various solar options, says Saurabh Marda, co-founder and managing director of Freyr Energy – a Hyderabad-based rooftop solar firm that has completed over 1200 installations in just 5 years since inception in 2014.

The latest blow in the political battle between clean energy project developers and an anti-renewables state government has seen the electricity regulator order power distribution companies to honor PPAs signed after a public tender.

Continuing delays in payments from utilities, regulatory uncertainty on tariff matters and tight financing have hit the industry hard.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has suggested minimum 25-year power purchase agreements and also opened up the option of including energy storage in solar-wind hybrid generation projects procured under its public tender regime.

Plant load factor for thermal power generators ramped up to 70-80% between July 2019 till date while solar power projects were arbitrarily backed down by more than 60-70% of their operational capacity during the same period.

The financial failings of India’s electric companies have once again come to the fore as the power minister warned the seven worst offending states the lengthening debts they owe renewables developers could be recovered via the National Company Law Tribunal.

The energy storage market is set to be the latest affected by Trump’s trade war as lithium-ion batteries were excluded from the group of Chinese imports for which the U.S. president announced tariffs would be delayed until December 15.

Jointly organised by India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) and The International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT), the conclave on EV and charging infrastructure will take place on August 9, 2019 at ICAT’s Manesar Campus in Gurugram with over a hundred participating companies.

The National Solar Energy Federation of India has warned the Ministry of Power that PV developers may be deterred from participating in state tenders because distribution companies are still not issuing letters of credit as a payment security mechanism.