Technology

“The addition of microgrids creates opportunities for developers to penetrate areas which were not previously explored while allowing the government to meet its renewable energy targets,” says Dr Jayashri Ravishankar—senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney—in an interview with pv magazine.

This year will see strong growth for the global PV market, to 114 GW, and that pattern will continue in the years ahead, according to analyst Wood Mackenzie. A report has highlighted soaring inverter replacement costs for PV project owners as a side-effect of the solar success story.

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 grid-connected projects—to be set up on ‘design-build-finance-operate-transfer’ basis—shall come up at 117 locations of four zonal railways (Eastern, North Central, North Frontier and Northern) and coach production units in Kapurthala and Raebareli. Bidding closes on December 9.

The aesthetically appealing 1 KWp, 3 KWp and 5 KWp artifacts can be installed at public places like beaches and parks to provide electrical power for different loads.

Scientists led by the Technical University of Denmark have begun a project to design solar cells that can be produced in different colors with minimal effect on performance, making them suitable for building-integrated and other applications with aesthetic considerations.

November 2 is the bidding deadline for grid-connected rooftop and small solar power plants that shall come up in government buildings across different states and union territories of India.

Further, the lobby group has asked the ministry to remove the domestic content requirement for solar cells at least for the first year, while also highlighting the need to specify standards or guidelines for setting up of agrivoltaics systems in farm lands.

EU industry body EUROBAT has called for the bloc to adopt a battery industrial strategy and has pushed the claims of domestic manufacturers in the same manner as India has, as the race hots up to dominate the global energy storage market.

Opinion is divided over the urgency of addressing the issue. While some developers feel the 25-year lifetime of modules offers plenty of time to prepare an action plan, other industry voices claim Indian-made products don’t last half that long and one recent report pointed out waste is already piling up thanks to defects and faulty installation.