Blogs
Gujarat rides roughshod over developers
28 January 2019 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Gujarat has cancelled the Banaskantha solar park based 700 MW utility scale solar tender for which an auction was conducted in December 2018. Winning bidders were SB Energy (250 MW, INR 2.84/ kWh), Fortum (250, 2.89) and...
General elections to slow things down but no retreat for RE
21 January 2019 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
India’s general elections are around the corner. Scheduled date is May and final detailed time-table should be announced soon around early March. There is emerging consensus that no single party is likely to return with...
Sense of déjà vu as RE tenders soar again
14 January 2019 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
In the last six weeks starting December 2018, 22 utility scale tenders aggregating 15,453 MW of capacity have been issued for wind and solar power projects in India. This spree has come as MNRE announced a revised plan in December 2018 to issue tenders for an aggregate capacity of 80,000 MW by...
Blockchain adoption needs significant policy shift
14 January 2019 | Tanmay Sardana
The state of Uttar Pradesh is gearing up to apply blockchain technology to the energy sector. In October 2018, UPERC, the state regulator, organized a conference on creation of an eco-system using blockchain technology to explore decentralized energy trading, track RE production and...
Five charts summarising RE development in 2018
14 January 2019 | Surbhi Singhvi
2018 was the first year to see a dip in RE capacity addition in India. The highest reduction was in wind (-52%), followed by utility scale solar (-29%) but rooftop solar continued to grow healthily (+73%). Figure 1: RE capacity addition, MW Source: BRIDGE TO INDIA research 2018 saw a huge surge in new tenders. However, actual project allocation was much less due to multiple...
Can ‘power for all’ turn into a reality?
07 January 2019 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government’s revised deadline for providing universal electricity access to all households under the SAUBHAGYA scheme lapsed on 31 December, 2018. The scheme portal shows that 24 million households, 97% of the revised target, have been electrified since October 2017. The only states yet to achieve...
The curious case of central and state government tender mix
31 December 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
MNRE is reportedto have asked states to proactively issue more RE tenders and reduce dependence on central government agencies. MNRE’s advice states that states are better positioned to structure tenders based...
2018 – one step forward, two steps backward
17 December 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
As 2018 comes to an end, we take stock of the progress made by the RE sector in the year. After finishing 2017 on a record high, total capacity addition is expected to fall by 32%. The fall is most notable in wind (down 46%), followed by utility scale solar (down 36%). In contrast, rooftop solar has grown by...
Maharashtra bets on agriculture feeder projects
10 December 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last year, the state government of Maharashtra had announced a solar agriculture feeder scheme with the aim to solarise such feeders across the state. Under the scheme, developers would be selected through competitive bidding for project sizes up to...
Rooftop solar needs a new policy paradigm
03 December 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
BRIDGE TO INDIA has just completed the latest round of rooftop solar data compilation exercise. India added new rooftop solar capacity of 1,538 MW in the year ending September 2018, up a remarkable 75% over previous year. Total installed capacity is estimated to have reached 3,399 MW as on 30 September 2018. Robust growth even in the face of safeguard duty and GST uncertainty reflects huge...
Floating solar needs new technical standards
29 November 2018 | Shipra Arora
SECI recently completed auction for India’s first large-scale floating solar plant. The 50 MW project at Rihand dam in Uttar Pradesh was won by Shapoorji Pallonji with a bid of INR 3.29/ kWh. The winning tariff is about 10% higher than observed in respective ground-mounted auctions. Floating solar is still in nascent stages of development in India with installed capacity of just 2.7 MW at...
Chinese companies boost their presence in the Indian inverter market
26 November 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
After occupying a dominant position in module supply, the Chinese companies are aggressively expanding their presence in the Indian solar inverter market. Their combined market share in utility scale projects in the latest available 12-month period has gone up to 46% from 1% just three years ago. 3 of the top 5 players are from China. There is a similar story in rooftop solar with aggregate...
