Policy

With Narendra Modi being tipped to triumph again in the current Indian elections, Indian solar capacity is expected to grow robustly, at 15.3% per year, on the back of continued strong government support.

The opening of India’s marathon six-week election yesterday will bring policymaking to a halt but a prominent consultancy says the nation is trailing behind peers when it comes to guidelines for materials and recycling, and the lack of a viable business case for reusing materials doesn’t help matters.

Solar could meet approximately 68% of global energy demand with other renewables making up the rest, according to a new report. A 100% renewable energy system could also create 22 million solar jobs by 2050, the study claims. Keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees C, though, would require FITs for projects up to 40 MW in capacity, auctions for bigger systems, removing fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies and providing more education and R&D and less red tape.

Although details are vague, the Vice Ministry of Alternative Energies is reportedly developing the country’s first medium sized projects to be connected to the national grid. It is also planning to implement distributed generation projects ranging in size from 1.5 MW to 3 MW in the crisis-torn nation.

The emphasis on grid-parity PV has been highlighted in a consultation document that has emerged after several weeks of haggling in Beijing. Chinese analyst AECEA says the success of any subsidy-free effort would hinge on the ability of power companies to transmit and guarantee consumption of power generated by new projects.

The Chinese thin film giant has transformed itself into a solar manufacturing equipment supplier and is set to expand a strategy which sees affiliates help fund industrial parks which then generate orders for its thin film production lines.

TrendForce says the country deployed more than 1 GW of new PV for the first time last year, and predicts this year may see as much as 1.5 GW of new solar capacity. The nation’s cumulative capacity reached 2,618 MW at the end of last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

The nation had a record year for solar energy development. Most of last year’s new additions – 320 MW – came through a FIT scheme but a further 90 MW was represented by net metered installations. Hungary’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached around 700 MW in 2018.

After issuing its first call for renewable energy projects in February, power company HEP has now announced it will invest $23 million annually in solar until 2023, to add new capacity additions of 20 MW per year. The 350 MW plan is expected to be complete in 2030.

Solar and wind could account for three-fifths of electricity generation in 2050, with more than 14.5 TW of installed power. Lumped together, renewables are expected to reach a power generation capacity of around 20 TW.