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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
