Blogs
What are India’s strategic energy options? Part 3: Cost trajectories of fossil and renewable energy
20 March 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
So far, in its process of industrialization, India has been relying heavily on its own coal reserves and on imported oil (mostly from the Middle East). Attempts to build a strong nuclear industry based on domestic Thorium reserves have so far been unsuccessful. Despite the shale gas revolution in the US, it seems like fossil fuels will become more and more expensive in India. At the same time,...
Weekly Update: India’s subsidy scheme for de-centralized solar to stay subdued in 2014 as well
19 March 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
Last financial year (April 2013- March 2014), the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) had received a budgetary allocation of INR 15.2 billion (USD 250 million) for various renewable energy programs. However, there was a mid-term course correction due to India’s high current account deficit situation and the actual disbursement ended up to be only INR 4.4 billion (USD 72 million). As...
A unique learning experience at the GSES Solar PV workshop
18 March 2014 | Karan Raj Chaudri
Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (‘GSES’) – a leading Australian firm engaged in providing training and resources for solar PV- held its first workshop in Delhi in the first week of March. The four day workshop was focused on technical and operational aspects of solar PV projects with a guided site visit to a solar plant to give participants an informative tour of a typical PV...
What are India’s strategic energy options? Part 2: Comparisons with the US, Germany and China
18 March 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
If India industrializes and quadruples its energy consumption to over 2 billion tons of oil equivalent per year, it needs to come up with a more thought out energy strategy than just the current “more of everything, whenever available”. Three countries comparable in size to India have been prominent in formulating and executing energy strategies. These are the US, Germany and China. This is...
What are India’s strategic energy options? Part 1: The energy demand
12 March 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
So far, in its process of industrialization, India has been relying heavily on its own coal reserves and on imported oil (mostly from the Middle East). Attempts to build a strong nuclear industry based on domestic Thorium reserves have so far been unsuccessful. Despite the shale gas revolution in the US, it seems like fossil fuels will become more and more expensive in India. At the same time,...
Weekly Update: Jammu & Kashmir signs an agreement for a 7,500 MW solar power plant
11 March 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
The state government of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) to set up 7,500 MW of solar power projects in the state(refer). The...
India’s energy future – BP’s thoughts and ours
07 March 2014 | Tobias Engelmeier
On the 28th of January, the Chief Economist of BP and lead author of the “BP World Energy Outlook”, Christof Rühl, gave a talk at the Delhi think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF) on the major global and Indian energy trends. His main takeaways were: there is enough energy to meet demand, prices will rise, the climate will suffer. I think that the main source of error in the forecast...
Weekly Update: Should Indian developers be worried about rising solar costs in 2014?
04 March 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
A recent report by GTM Research claims that new global capacity addition announcements can bring about a turning point in the PV supply-demand dynamics in 2014 (
Weekly Update: National Solar Mission to miss capacity targets for the year by a significant margin
25 February 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
The year 2013 was a comparatively good year for the global solar market. While 39 GW of solar was installed globally in 2013, India, which got off to a good start two years back, is now facing a tough time achieving its 1.1 GW target set for the current fiscal year (2013- 14). China alone installed 12 GW in 2013 with Japan and the US tied at around 4 GW each. In terms of future...
Acme, Azure Power and SunEdison get the biggest share of the NSM
25 February 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
On 21st February 2014, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) opened the financial bids for the allocation of solar PV projects under batch one of phase two of the National Solar Mission (NSM). A total of 122 project bids were received from 58 developers. The lower the VGF sought, the higher the chances of success. Four bids – those by PMP Auto Components, Zandu Realty, Golden...
Weekly Update: Kerala announces a draft net metering policy
15 February 2014 | Akhilesh Magal
The Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (KSERC) has announced its draft net metering policy titled, ‘Draft Kerala State Electricity Regulatory Commission (Grid Interactive Distributed Solar Energy Systems) Regulations, 2014’. Stakeholders are...
Weekly Update: Is solar in Tamil Nadu back?
08 February 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
Barely two weeks ago, after being challenged by the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association and Tamil Nadu Electricity Consumers’ Association, the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity termed the state’s Solar Purchase Obligations (SPOs) as illegal. Tamil Nadu had an original and rather innovative plan to drive the demand for solar power through procurement...
