Blogs
What the landmark Supreme Court judgment on coal allocations means for solar and for doing business in India
04 September 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
On August 25th, India’s supreme court judged all coal block allocations to private parties after 14th July 1993 to be illegal due to “arbitrariness and legal flaws” (see ruling here). While it is not clear what will follow next – i.e. how these transaction will be either untangled or made...
How should India drive its solar transformation?
03 September 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
Today, India’s power mix is still dominated by coal, which makes up around 60% of installed capacity. Solar stands at just around 1%. With the National Solar Mission, launched in 2010, India defined an ambitious national goal of installing 20 GW of grid connected solar power by 2022. Since 2010, however, the fundamentals of energy supply in India have changed significantly. Solar was around...
Weekly Update:Telangana releases tender for 500 MW of solar PV capacity
02 September 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
The newly created south Indian state of Telangana, which was carved out of the state of Andhra Pradesh, has announced a 500 MW solar PV tender (refer). This comes within a month of the now smaller, remaining part of Andhra Pradesh announcing its own 500 MW tender (refer). While the Andhra Pradesh tender is based on the district wise L1 method of bidding, where all the perspective bidders need to...
Is Karnataka the next big destination for solar?
28 August 2014 | Srikanth Kumar
Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) issued an order on August 18th 2014 exempting open access charges for solar projects within the state (refer). Karnataka is the first state in India to give a long-term visibility on the open access charges. This is a very good precedent. Uncertainty around grid charges is a key...
How to provide energy access in India: Mini-grids or grid extension?
27 August 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
The new Indian government seeks to provide all Indians with reliable 24×7 power before the next elections in 2019. According to estimates, there are still 300-400 million Indians without access to electricity. The government has two broad options in trying to meet the target. It can extend the grid to un-electrified households (and ensure there is sufficient power supply in the grid) or...
Weekly Update: No anti-dumping duties: Indian government lets deadline lapse
26 August 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
In a major relief to the solar sector, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) has not acted upon the recommendations made by the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) for imposing anti-dumping duties on import of solar cells and modules. No official communiqué has been issued by the MoF yet but the deadline of 22nd August 2014 for acting upon the recommendations has gone by. Government to focus...
Anti-dumping duties would undermine Modi’s appeal for “make in India”
21 August 2014 | Mudit Jain
In his Independence Day speech on the 15th of August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited Indian and international companies to come to India to manufacture, or in his words “make in India”. A decision on anti-dumping duties (ADD) is due this Friday (22nd August). On the face of it, it might seem that ADD supports “make in India”, however, this is a fallacy. In reality, ADD...
Around 23,000 jobs may be lost due to the imposition of anti-dumping duties on solar PV in India
21 August 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
By tomorrow, Friday, August 22nd, the Indian Ministry of Finance will notify its decision on anti-dumping duties (ADD) on solar cells and modules. If the duties are imposed as suggested by the Ministry of Finance, they will have a highly disruptive effect on the Indian solar market. Employment in this sector is likely to suffer a major setback, as significant number of...
Weekly Update: MNRE receives funds for sanction of capital subsidy for a rooftop capacity of 25 MW
19 August 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
After a long delay, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has finally received a budgetary allocation to go ahead with sanction of 30% capital subsidy for a 25 MW rooftop solar capacity under the Central Financial Assistance (CFA) scheme (
Weekly Update: India mulls doing away with reverse bidding
12 August 2014 | Akhilesh Magal
Mr. Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary for the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) announced at a conference last week that India might look at following Germany’s lead by going ahead with fixed Feed-in Tariffs (FiT) as...
Solar capacity additions – A vapid year for JNNSM while the non-policy market perks up
07 August 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Going from a nascent market with a mere 22 MW of total installed PV capacity in 2011 to over 2.5 GW in 2014, the Indian solar market has held up to its promise for being one of the most exhilarating markets. This has been achieved largely due to the flagship JNNSM scheme of the Indian government as well as state policy driven projects. India added 171 MW of PV capacity in the last quarter,...
Interactive design course on On-Grid PV Systems by GSES
06 August 2014 | Gayrajan Kohli
The participants of the training were a mix of a retired homeowner, an entrepreneur, an investment banker and a former political consultant and many others from this field of work, all these people got together for one purpose – a desire to gain strong technical capabilities to design grid-connected solar systems and update themselves on the latest MNRE schemes. The training was fairly...
