The International Solar Alliance (ISA), spearheaded by India, is about to take shape with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and French president Francois Hollande due to lay a foundation stone for the new ISA headquarters in Delhi on 25 January.
India’s government has approved significant amendments to the nation’s power ‘Tariff Policy’, including increasing the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) to 8% for solar energy by March 2022.
Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC), an Indian state-owned mining and power company, is tendering for 260MW of grid-connected solar PV capacity in two Indian states.
India’s fifth largest private sector bank YES Bank plans to list a Green Bond of up to US$500 million on The London Stock Exchange by December this year.
Renewable energy firm SunEdison has completed the second phase of a deal to acquire a 33% interest in US utility Dominion’s 567MW portfolio of solar projects for US$117 million.
Solar developers AGL Energy and First Solar have completed Australia’s two largest solar PV plants at Nyngan (102MW) and Broken Hill (53MW), which included AU$166.7 million support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
New South Wales was the only Australian state to experience a significant increase in volumes of sub-100kW PV systems in 2015, with most other states contracting, according to the latest figures from Australia-based solar consultancy SunWiz.
India’s fiercely competitive solar auctions have driven bids down to another surprise low with Finland-based developer Fortum Finnsurya Energy winning 70MW capacity in Rajasthan at a price of INR4.34/kWh (US$0.064), which is a drop of more than a 6% from the previous Indian record of INR4.63/kWh.
Chile’s installed solar PV capacity reached 848MW as of the end of December 2015, according to the latest update from Chilean renewable energy research institute Centro para la Innovación y Fomento de las Energías Sustentables (CIFES).
A consortium between India-based integrated utility and solar developer Essel Infra and China-based PV material manufacturer Golden Concord Holdings (GCL) has signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh government to invest US$2 billion in developing 5GW of module manufacturing capacity by 2020 in the Indian state.
