Blogs
MNRE’s new quality policy creates confusion
26 March 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
MNRE’s proposed quality testing and standards regime is facing a difficult take-off. Policy ambiguity and lack of testing infrastructure have already led to multiple revisions in implementation timetable. The Indian RE sector has a major quality problem and MNRE intervention, long overdue, is highly welcome; The policy needs to be backed up with urgent investments in testing...
String inverters gaining market share in India
21 March 2018 | Mudit Jain
Share of string inverters in the Indian solar market is increasing rapidly. It went up from only 1% until 2016 to 9% in 2017 for new utility scale solar capacity commissioned. We expect the trend to accelerate even further in the coming years. Increased adoption of string inverters for utility scale projects is in line with experience in other international markets including USA and...
Rooftop solar attracts more financing
19 March 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
As the Indian rooftop solar market grows, it is attracting more attention from investors and financiers. Shell is rumoured to be entering the market in partnership with Fourth Partner, a leading rooftop solar EPC. Several...
India and France take star turns in ISA
12 March 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
International Solar Alliance (ISA) conducted a founding summit in Delhi over the last two days. The event was organized with great pomp with 21 heads of state attending besides Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and the French President, Emmanuel Macron. There were several new announcements on financing, project schemes and partnerships although most of these appear vague. That makes it...
Open access solar continues to be mired in uncertainty
05 March 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Karnataka’s attractive open access policy for solar projects is set to expire at the end of this month. That is leading to a rush in project development activity in the state, which already leads other states with a total installed open access based solar capacity of 334 MW. As much as 1,000 MW of new capacity is expected to be commissioned over February and March. Many large developers...
Trade protection for domestic manufacturers is misguided
28 February 2018 | Jyoti Gulia
While the solar industry anxiously awaits the safeguard duty decision, we have examined the rationale of policies favouring domestic manufacturing in a recent study. We have assessed the complete solar value chain – from manufacturing to project construction and operations – and evaluated each activity for employment and value creation to understand their overall impact on the...
Wind makes an emphatic case
26 February 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
In the latest wind auction for SECI 2,000 MW tender held on February 13, 2018, winning tariffs came out at INR 2.44 – 2.45/kWh. Winners include ReNew (400 MW), Sembcorp (300 MW), Inox (200 MW), Torrent Power (500 MW), Adani (250 MW), Alfanar (300 MW) and Engie (50 MW). There were five other participants including Sprng, Enel, Orange, Hero and Mytrah. The tender was oversubscribed by...
Duty announcement seems imminent
19 February 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Since announcement of preliminary findings by Director General of Safeguards (DGS) last month, a decision on provisional safeguard duty has been anxiously awaited by the Indian solar industry. We understand that the government is leaning towards a 20-25% duty and the decision process is fairly...
US safeguard duty to have nuanced implications for India
13 February 2018 | Mudit Jain
On 22nd January this year, the US government imposed 30% safeguard duty on imported solar cells and modules. The duty has been imposed for four years but will reduce by 5% every year. First 2.5 GW of imports every year shall be exempted from duties. As per WTO laws, imports from specified developing countries shall also be exempt from duties up to 3% of ‘total imports’ for individual...
It’s raining RE tenders in India
12 February 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL), Gujarat government holding company for power distribution and transmission businesses in the state, announced a new 500 MW solar tender last week. The tender has an innovative provision in the form of a 500 MW green-shoe option. If GUVNL deems the lowest auction tariff attractive, it can exercise an option to increase the tender capacity up to 1,000 MW...
Energy goes missing from the Union Budget
07 February 2018 | Surbhi Singhvi
The Indian Finance Minister announced budget for the financial year 2018-19 last week. Being this government’s last budget before general elections due in early 2019, the focus was unsurprisingly on populist measures related to agriculture, rural development and health. But we still found it remarkable how little attention was paid to the entire energy sector. Focus is on rural...
Karnataka takes the lead in addressing duty concerns
05 February 2018 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Karnataka announced results of an 860 MW state solar tender last week. 11 developers have won 48 projects aggregating 760 MW at tariffs ranging between INR 2.94 – 3.54/ kWh. Big winners include Shapoorji Pallonji (185 MW), Acme (106 MW), ReNew (99 MW), Asian Fab Tech (85 MW) and Greenko (45 MW). Prominent losers include Aditya Birla, Avaada, Orange and EdF. 100 MW of the allocated capacity...
