As national elections approach, prime minister Narendra Modi has signed off a huge check to finance national programs to subsidize household and community PV and to drive solar pump deployment in the nation’s fields.

The Solar Energy Corporation of India has invited bids for the development of an aggregate capacity of 20 MW of lagoon-based floating PV with 60 MWh of battery-based storage systems in the union territory of Lakshadweep.

U.K. developer Lightsource BP – in which oil and gas giant BP has a significant minority stake – and its Singapore fund partner EverSource Capital are reportedly ready to take up all the $100 million slice of Ayana Renewable Power which is being put up for sale.

Given its ambitious goal of achieving 175 GW of renewable power generation capacity by 2022 – and push for electric mobility – the world’s second most populous nation presents a potentially huge investment opportunity.

The 10 MW system at Tata Power Delhi Distribution’s Rohini substation is said to be South Asia’s largest.

Following power company NTPC’s 20 MW tender for Rajasthan and 15 MW procurement for Himachal Pradesh, Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited has invited bids to develop 10 MW of floating PV in Hisar. The deadline for bid submission is on March 1.

The state government has unveiled its new solar energy policy. The ambition would encompass projects, programs and installations relating to solar PV and thermal energy, and is aimed at utilities as well as energy consumers.

A week after rejecting the sole bid received – from Azure Power – for its manufacturing-linked 10 GW solar procurement, the government has trimmed the size of the ill-fated exercise by more than two-thirds.

State-owned Masdar Clean Energy is in talks to acquire a 30-35% stake in Hero Future Energies. With the stake sale, the renewable energy arm of Hero Group expects to raise $300-350 million for its expansion into global markets, according to reports.

EV sales retreated to a mere 1,200 units in the 2018 financial year, but electric two-wheeler sales rose 138%, to 54,800 units, according to research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.