News in Brief: CleanMax and Hitachi partner for rooftop solar in India for Japanese companies, Tyler Technologies installs a solar-plus-storage system at its Texas headquarters, Germany's Redavia expands into West Africa with solar for the country's Maritime University, more community solar is completed in Massachusetts and Surana wins a bid for 5MW of rooftop solar in Andhra Pradesh.
Plenty of naysayers have warned about unrealistic bidding and various delays damaging the Indian solar sector, but the head of ACME Solar, one of the largest developers India, approaching 1GW of installed capacity, has a very positive outlook on the industry's future. PV Tech caught up Manoj Kumar Upadhyay, the founder, chairman and managing director of ACME Group at the company offices in Gurgaon, New Delhi, to discuss delayed PPAs, transmission infrastructure, the approaching Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill and a unique point of view on India's Ultra Mega solar power parks.
An Asian consortium involving China-based PV manufacturer and developer JinkoSolar and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation has submitted the lowest ever bid for solar PV capacity in Abu Dhabi, standing at US$0.0242/kWh.
Canada-based renewables firm SkyPower will join China-based battery developer BYD in competitive bidding for 750MW of solar and energy storage development in India.