There were no takers for roughly 55% of the capacity up for grabs in India’s 500MW government buildings rooftop tender, however the final installed capacities could still rise again.
Malaysia utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has received a Letter of Acceptance of Offer from the Energy Commission (EC) to develop a 45MW (30MWac) solar PV project at Bukit Selambau, Kedah, according to a filing on the website of exchange holding company Bursa Malaysia.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has made an equity investment of US$15 million into Indian rooftop solar specialist CleanMax Solar, the financier’s first foray into grid-connected distributed generation.
The Saubhagya scheme to bring electricity to every household in India was launched in the state of Manipur by the Minister for Power and New & Renewable Energy.
Laser micromachining specialist 3D-Micromac said it was supplying Hanwha Q CELLS solar cell plant in Qidong, Jiangsu-province, China with its microCELL OTF laser system for its recently announced transition from Al-BSF (Aluminium Back Surface Field) to PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Cell) technology.
GTM Research’s latest ‘Global Solar Demand Monitor’ report has highlighted that 13 countries by the end of 2018 would exceed the 1-gigawatt level of annual PV installations, up from eight in 2017.
Rooftop PV is the fastest growing renewable energy sub-segment in India, with individual system sizes increasing and the C&I sector maturing, but a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts that India will still only reach 9.5GW out of its 40GW target by 2022.
