Asia

India’s solar tariffs are some of the lowest in the world, but they’re almost double the Gulf region’s tariffs.

India’s Solar Power Developers Association said that the one-year safeguard duty extension has already driven up capital costs. Any additional tariff barriers would jeopardize the Indian government’s “100 GW by 2022” target, it claimed.

Longyuan Power has signed a deal to build a 2 GW hybrid wind-solar-storage project in Inner Mongolia. JA Solar and Sungrow, meanwhile, said that they have supplied PV modules and inverters for a 133 MW solar-wind project in South Korea.

Chinese monocrystalline PV module manufacturer Longi has yet to join the race to produce solar panels with power outputs above 600 W. The decision is line with a clear strategy, a company spokesperson told pv magazine. Outstanding issues for these moduels, according to the manufacturer, include low cell manufacturing yield, system compatibility, concerns about module transport, and hotspot-related failure risks, as well as the need for mechanical loading tests.

Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Limited (GSECL) has invited bids to set up an aggregate 110 MW of grid-connected solar power plants at several substations operated by Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited. Bidding closes on September 16.

Plus, details have been revealed of a 2 MW/2.5 MWh grid scale storage demo project in Switzerland and for a peer-to-peer renewable energy certificate marketplace in Southeast Asia.

A 133 MW hybrid solar-wind power plant linked to 242 MWh of storage is currently being built in a mountainous area in South Korea. Chinese manufacturer JA Solar has provided the modules for the PV section.

A newly proposed inverter design relies on a solar charge controller featuring maximum power point tracking. It is based on an artificial fish-swarm algorithm, which offers high convergence speeds, flexibility, fault tolerance, and accuracy.

Plus, analyst WoodMac says a fall in the cost of power generation in Japan during the public health crisis will help drive renewables investment and the Indian government has relaxed borrowing rules for its financially crippled electric utilities.

International thinktank IEEFA says there are 50 viable green hydrogen projects under development with an estimated renewable energy capacity of 50 GW and the potential to produce 4 million tonnes of the fuel annually.