Up to $1 billion expected from Sterling & Wilson solar share sale
Around US$1 billion is expected to be raised in the sale of up to 30% of Sterling & Wilson’s solar engineering arm. The funds will come from a pre-listing stake sale followed by an initial public offering (IPO), and will be used to reduce the debt of the 153-year-old conglomerate.
Enhancing energy trading in South Asia
The Indian Ministries of External Affairs and Power, in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), organized the South Asia Power Summit 2018, held recently in New Delhi. The daylong conference highlighted that diversity of energy resources in South Asian countries brings the opportunity to provide affordable, low-carbon energy in the region. The business case for enhanced energy trading in the region, and challenges faced in inter-country electricity trading were important elements of this discussion.
German researchers achieve 25.5% efficiency for perovskite tandem solar cells
The research team was able to improve the cell efficiency by 2.1%. The cell silicon layer was etched on the back-side, while a a polymer light management (LM) foil was applied to the front-side of the device.
Fears 10 GW solar tender will be scrapped
The Solar Energy Corporation of India’s (SECI) much-hyped 10 GW manufacturing-linked tender, which has already been postponed six times, received a very tepid response on Monday, the last submission date.
SECI to float 4 GW of solar tenders in 4 months
Caught in a confusion of canceled auctions, tariff wars, safeguard duties and missed targets, the Indian government is now fast tracking solar power, having asked the Solar Power Corporation of India (SECI) to float 4 GW worth of tenders in four months.
Solar, wind cheapest source of new generation in major economies – report
Solar and/or wind are said to be the cheapest source of new energy generation in all major economies, apart from Japan, finds BloombergNEF. It adds that China’s utility-scale PV market has contracted by over a third this year; and that battery costs are set to drop a further 66% by 2030, driven by EV adoption.
CERC orders $30 million GST compensation payment
India’s Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has ordered government agencies to reimburse nearly US$30 million incurred by solar power developers as additional capital expenditure under the Goods & Services Tax (GST) laws, which came into effect on July 1, 2017.
The long read: Cutting down on copper
Controllable, distributed battery storage systems can help avoid bottlenecks in power distribution networks. That reduces the cost of grid expansion, but to turn this use of storage systems into a business model, a number of conditions still have to be met.
Harayana starts to make headway with another 20 MW of rooftops
State is struggling to hit an ambitious distributed generation target that calls for another 1.6 GW of rooftop capacity within four years.
NTPC tenders 1.2 GW of grid connected solar capacity
The projects, in Maharashtra, will be commissioned through a reverse auction with technical bidding to close on December 19. The deadline for the submission of financial bids and the date for the reverse auction after the opening of financial bids, will be published in due course.
