Central & East Asia

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.

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.

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.