Policy

India’s Ministry of External Affairs is approaching Chinese authorities, demanding CSUN Trading and CEEG Solar Science to meet the contractual obligations to the Indian companies and also to honour the arbitration award. Further, it has cautioned Indian stakeholders against procuring PV modules from these high-risk companies that have over 160 court cases against them—mostly for breach of contract.

Nevertheless, bringing down aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses would be key to stabilising the power sector in India. Additionally, measures like smart-metering should be expedited and implemented in a time-bound manner, suggest the ratings agency analysts.

To avail the waiver, the solar or wind project capacity should have been awarded through competitive bidding and commissioned between February 13, 2018 and March 31, 2022.

The benchmark levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for lithium-ion batteries has fallen to $187 per kilowatt-hour since the first half of 2018. The overwhelming cost improvement is making batteries paired with solar or wind projects challenge coal- and gas-fired generation for grid stability, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF).

National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) will carry out inspections, verifications and quality checks on behalf of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

In response to feedback from the domestic renewable energy sector, the Indian government has revealed plans to launch $5 billion of tenders for new transmission lines, starting in phases from this summer.

To enhance the effectiveness of settlement mechanism, the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) has asked the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) to allow aggregation of generation schedule based on independent power producer or quality coordinating agency and considering the same for calculation of deviation. Removal of the rescheduling charges and dual payment mechanism are among other changes sought.

While these electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities will mainly come up at CNG and petrol pumps, 33 are planned for Metro Stations as well, in addition to one each in the parking area at Indira Gandhi International Airport and Jamia Millia. These are likely to become operational within three months.

Finnish clean-energy company Fortum, in cooperation with US-based inductive charging specialist Momentum Dynamics, will install induction-based infrastructure to allow for wireless charging up to 75 kilowatts.

Mumbai-based Waaree Energies has solar PV module manufacturing capacity of 1.5 GW—claimed to be the largest in India. At a time when the company is expanding to newer markets with customized solar modules for electric vehicles, Sunil Rathi, Director, Waaree Energies spoke to pv magazine about manufacturing in the current duty regime.