Legal

With Karnataka withdrawing open access waivers and the policy not replicated elsewhere, corporate buyers are increasingly favouring group captive projects that are exempt from the cross-subsidy surcharge—the largest and most unpredictable component of grid charges for open access power.

Indian solar manufacturers are facing a double whammy with USA removing preferential trade status for India and safeguard duty imposed by India nearing fall to 20% from July 2019. Struggling to find domestic as well as export markets, they expect the government to focus on policy direction, not just expenditure.

Citing huge losses to solar power developers, the lobby group has urged state-owned utility Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited not to arbitrarily curtail generation from solar power projects that are in any case ‘must run.’

The power minister’s proposal would be a step in the right direction towards meeting the 40 GW rooftop solar target, as it removes a financing hurdle for small and medium enterprises.

Easy access to finance topped the agenda of the minister’s meeting with various stakeholders, wherein issues related to land acquisition and Goods and Services Tax (GST) were also discussed.

With continuous decline in costs of solar power generation, the chorus for shortening the 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) period is growing louder.

Solar installations picked up significantly in the January-March period, with 1.89 GW of utility-scale PV projects providing 76% of the quarterly total. Rooftop PV accounted for the remaining 590 MW of new capacity additions. Looking ahead, Bridge to India expects the uptrend to continue, as the first quarter ended with a record amount of capacity in the national pipeline.

Having acted against Turkey, the Trump administration has removed India too from the list of nations exempt from import tariffs on solar cells and modules.

The import of secondary cells and batteries of lead-acid and nickel-based chemistries will be allowed subject to IEC 61427 certification of the product and certificate issued by the MNRE, along with an undertaking from the supplier that the products will be utilised for solar PV power projects only.

The court appears to have sided with solar developers who are complaining about a revision made late last year which ensured only 70% of the costs associated with PV project establishment would qualify for a discounted rate of goods and services tax.