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Following UK-based private equity investor Actis dropping the purchase plan, debt-laden Essel Infraprojects is reportedly negotiating the deal with Adani Group for Rs 1,800-2,000 crore.

A requirement for domestic-only solar modules has been lifted in the latest solar tender by the Indian power giant. Interested bidders have until next Wednesday to get their submissions in.

The state figure is applied on top of a larger, non-solar RPO requirement plus solar and non-solar mandates which were set at a national level by the Ministry of Power last week.

India’s Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has invited bids from domestic and international players for setting up of small grid-interactive solar plants ranging from 500 KW to 2 MW at lands of state-owned utilities. The cumulative capacity, to be installed in turnkey mode, is 40 MW for Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh each and 20 MW for Jharkhand. The state-run energy service company is also mulling to install an aggregate 200 MW of grid-connected solar rooftop across 5,000 state-owned buildings in Maharashtra.

Developers can establish more generation capacity on the site if possible but must not fall short of 8 MW, according to the tender document. A pre bid meeting is due to be held tomorrow.

Solar Energy Corporation of India was given a Rs 500 crore cash pot to help developers in February, but that clearly wasn’t enough, as a second newly announced scheme underscores just how much financial distress the country’s state power companies are in.

Bidders can now lodge their interest until July 1 and are required to submit any amendments, signed and stamped, along with the bid.

The state-owned engineering major will set up a floating solar plant at NTPC Ramagundam in Telangana and a ground-mounted plant at Raghanesda Ultra Mega Solar Park in Gujarat, with a capacity of 100 MW each.

The global energy storage market is poised to grow rapidly in the coming years, with Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicting $620 billion in investment over the next two decades will push cumulative global installations to 942 GW/2,857 GWh by 2040. Declining lithium-ion battery costs are driving much of this growth, with BNEF expecting the cost of utility-scale storage systems to fall roughly 52% through 2030, following an approximate 80% slide in the average price of lithium-ion battery packs in the first seven years of the current decade.

The Irrigation Department of Uttarakhand, in Dehradun, has re-tendered a 27 MW solar project at the Haripura Dam and a 13 MW installation at the Tumariya Dam in the Udham Singh Nagar district. The project will now be awarded through tariff-based competitive bidding.