Policy

American power company Eleris Energy has agreed to construct five 200MW solar plants on the Swarna Dweep island administered by the army and used for training exercises, with the capacity due online within five years.

The Green Hydrogen Policy is designed to promote green hydrogen and green ammonia projects with provisions like 25-year waiver of inter-state transmission (ISTS) charges and ISTS connectivity on priority for renewable energy capacity set up for the purpose. 

The framework will guide the state-level and central government ministries and other stakeholders in formulating schemes and programs for the promotion of distributed renewable energy-based livelihood applications.

The Biden administration has upheld an exclusion for bifacial panels in its new extension of Section 201 tariffs, while ramping up the annual tariff rate quota for cells to 5GW.

Norway’s Scatec, which has a 50% stake in Acme’s 900 MW solar project in Rajasthan, cited a lack of domestic solar panel supply and the 40% import duty on solar panels effective from April as the reasons for putting the PV project on hold.

The move is aimed at identifying chunks of land for solar plants and solar parks as the State government looks into the possibility of developing more capacity in the state and further increasing its ‘37.5 GW by 2024-25’ renewable energy generation target.

The budget presented today by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocates an extra INR19,500 crore (US$2,602 million) to the production-linked incentive scheme for solar and notifies basic customs duty of 40% on foreign-made solar modules and 25% on cells, from April.

Players in the electric mobility sector call for a reduction in goods and services tax on electric vehicle (EV) batteries, easy access to low-cost finance for EV buyers, and expansion of FAME Scheme subsidy to ICE-to-EV conversion kits. They also expect the government to enhance the manufacturing capacity and financial layout under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for advanced-chemistry battery cells.

Power minister RK Singh recently met with renewable energy developers and industry representatives to discuss the draft Policy on energy storage systems. He informed the participants the government is looking to delicense the setting up of energy storage systems not co-located with renewable energy generation facilities.

With solar water pumps, farmers have access to high-quality power available for irrigation. These systems are portable and can be assembled at any preferred location. With the growing utilization of these systems, the costs have decreased substantially, making them an efficient, convenient, and cost-effective solution for grid-isolated rural areas.