Central & East Asia

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has announced that his government is working on a National Energy Policy.

France has surpassed 7.7GW of solar installations, Northern Ireland’s largest PV plant has been sold to Greencoat, India’s 1st solar carport to be installed on a rooftop has been completed by Tata Power Solar.

India has announced plans for an unprecedented solar procurement regime that aims to tender 20GW in 2017/18, followed by another 30GW in each of the two following years, but analysts have described the policy as "completely unrealistic".

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$44.76 million grant to support the development of a 20MW solar PV project in Afghanistan.

India’s government has signed a $98 million loan agreement and US$2 million grant agreement with the World Bank to facilitate India’s 2022 renewable energy target through solar parks.

Sri Lanka has reached more than 100MW of installed solar capacity, closing in on its target of 1GW by 2025.

Equis Energy has commissioned three solar projects totalling 47.5MW in capacity at Shichinohe Town in Aomori Prefecture, Japan.

UPDATED: An oral hearing on India’s anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar cells and modules from China, Taiwan and Malaysia has been postponed to 12 December.

South Korean capital Seoul plans to invest US$1.55 billion in a solar plan which aims to install 1GW of PV generation capacity by 2022, according to local sources.

If India’s anti-dumping duty petition results in the introduction of trade barriers without other policy level reforms, it will fail to achieve its original goal of supporting domestic manufacturers, having already created huge uncertainty in the whole sector, according to a report by consultancy firm Bridge to India.