Policy

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has addressed complaints by solar developers about a lack of power evacuation infrastructure by changing its solar park guidelines. Under the new rules, though, developers are likely to incur higher costs.

The state has decided to withdraw almost all incentives available to open access solar, including exemption from electricity duty and distribution losses for projects injecting power at 33 kV or below. The policy reversal—clearly to appease state discoms—is likely to impact capacity addition.

The committee is constituted for overall monitoring, sanctioning and implementation of the scheme, according to an order of the Department of Heavy Industries.

The municipal council of Karimnagar has mandated rooftop solar on new buildings of a certain size as part of the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy’s Smart City Mission, which requires 10% of municipal energy to be generated from solar.

Utility-scale solar power capacity will grow by double digits globally in 2019 and 2020, driven by expansions in the United States, Europe, Middle East and China.

India needs a manufacturing policy that is scalable, secure, strategical and supportive and promotes both the growth and spread of solar while protecting the interests of domestic manufacturers.

While commissioning is expected to slow down in FY 2018-19 due to the impact of the safeguard duty and GST issues, FY 2019-20 is weak due to delay in auction as several tenders got delayed/cancelled. However, FY2019-20 onwards, solar capacity additions are expected to pick up due to several factors including subsiding/removal of the safeguard duty (which would ease cost pressures).

In a move to promote indigenous manufacturing, the government has doubled the basic import duty on lithium ion cells—used in manufacturing of lithium ion accumulator for EVs—to 10 per cent from April 2021. Battery packs used in manufacturing electric vehicles face tripled import duty of 15 per cent as against the current 5 per cent.

A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water claims the imposition of goods and services tax on PV projects, safeguarding duty on module imports and late payments from hard-up power distribution companies are all hindering Indian solar.

The President of India has approved total central financial support of Rs34,422 crore for the Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthan Mahaabhiyan (KUSUM) rural solar scheme. Through the scheme, the government aims to add solar and other renewable capacity of 25.75 GW by 2022.