Blogs
The recent announcement by energy giant, E.On: What are the three key lessons for the Indian utilities?
15 December 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
E.ON is among the top multi-utility player of Germany with diversified business in power generation, natural gas, energy trading, retail and distribution operations. It has decided to spin off the fossil fuel business (together with some other businesses, such as energy trading and exploration) and focus on renewables, on grid management and on “customer services”. This is a drastic step as...
Weekly update : India to amend its “Electricity Act” – what does that mean for solar?
09 December 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government is planning to amend the Electricity Act 2003 in a fundamental power sector reform. The goal is to break the monopoly of power distribution companies on the end consumer and allow for more effective competition in the last-mile delivery and sale of power (
Is raising the solar RPO target to 10.5% a good idea?
06 December 2014 | Mudit Jain
India’s new government has been very bullish on growing solar. Plans are underway to revise the National Solar Mission (NSM) target to 100 GW by 2022. There is a lively debate in the industry about the achievability of the targets and about the best ways to reach them. Now, it transpired that the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) wants to increase solar Renewable Purchase Obligation...
What makes Tamil Nadu a leader in the Indian rooftop solar market?
04 December 2014 | Jyoti Gulia
BRIDGE TO INDIA recently carried out a first of its kind analysis on India’s rooftop solar market in India (refer here). It is based on extensive interviews the team has conducted with almost all stakeholders in the market over the last few months. With about one-fifth of all rooftop solar installations concentrated in...
How India can install 30 GW distributed solar projects by 2022
03 December 2014 | Mudit Jain
India’s new government is revamping the National Solar Mission (NSM). The target has been revised to 100 GW by 2022 from the originally envisaged 20 GW. Based on unconfirmed information, 30 GW has been earmarked to come from distributed generation. This target is very ambitious, considering the fact that India’s current distributed solar capacity is only 285 MW, which is less than 1% of the...
Weekly update: Can India achieve 100 GW solar in 8 years?
02 December 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, speaking at a UNEP and FICCI conference on ‘Designing a sustainable financial system for India’, the Minister for Coal, Power and Renewable Energy, Shri. Piyush Goyal reiterated the government’s plan to achieve 100 GW of solar by 2022. This is a very ambitious goal – to say the least. Is it feasible? The short answer is: it depends on political will. And it will...
Weekly update: How real is India’s solar target for 100 GW by 2022?
26 November 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Over the past few weeks, India’s minister for power, coal and renewables, Mr. Piyush Goyal has publicly stated on several occasions that he envisions India to have 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. This is very ambitious. For this target to be achieved, India would soon have to start ramping up solar capacity at a pace similar to that of China, which plans to add another 40 GW in the next...
Sunny days are here for solar power in India
24 November 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
India under Modi’s regime is being deliberated as a preferred destination for solar investments from rest of the world. An upcoming mega exhibition is going to be held in Delhi in February, to facilitate the international investment in India, “RE Invest Summit” (link). Though solar makes sense in India, but the question still...
Weekly Update | India looking at all options for low cost financing of solar projects in the country
18 November 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government clearly understands the impact and importance of low cost finance for the solar sector in the country and has taken up efforts to woo international institutional capital to the sector. Latest step in this direction is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between US-EXIM and IREDA for a financing support of up to USD 1 billion (INR 61 billion) for...
Small project sizes in Uttarakhand have increased average tariffs
12 November 2014 | Mudit Jain
Uttarakhand has opened the financial bid for a 30 MW tender which was floated in August’14. Despite the projects lacking scale advantage, Redwood projects has quoted a highly aggressive bid of INR 6.85/kWh for a 1 MW project. This bid is the lowest and is INR 0.71/kWh below the next bid. Overall, the median winning bid is INR 7.75/kWh, which is 12% higher than the median winning bids in...
Weekly update: MNRE revises subsidy benchmarks for off-grid and decentralized solar
11 November 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) announced revised subsidy benchmarks for various off-grid and decentralized solar applications (refer). The subsidy amounts have been fixed in absolute Rupee terms instead of as...
Utility scale projects are easiest to implement in India due to an existing track record
06 November 2014 | Mudit Jain
We believe that India could easily add 100 GW of solar power in the next ten years.[1] Such a capacity addition would likely be divided into different segments: small rooftop (solar bees), large rooftop (solar...
