India

After the bombshell new this week, the Italian inverter manufacturer’s CEO spoke to pv magazine about the future of ABB’s R&D hubs, manufacturing sites, hundreds of employees and of course Fimer’s outlook.

An investor tool examining the coal fleets of major global power companies has offered up analysis which flies in the face of arguments solar and wind generation could help turn around the debt-saddled South African utility.

While Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and Brazil attracted more funds than last year, China’s transition to an auction-based procurement system and slow performance overall in Europe saw worldwide backing decrease. BloombergNEF does expect investments to ramp up in the second half, however.

Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were the top five states by annual installation, accounting for 60% of the new capacity.

While the nation’s recent Union budget announced steps to create an electric vehicle market, the solar sector still has issues that have not been addressed.

This Swiss giant is following a trend as large multinational high-tech companies see their role as redesigning infrastructure rather than supplying inverters at ever lower margins. Schneider Electric has pulled out of large scale solar, Siemens’ Kaco acquisition and Junelight launch show increasing interest in the C&I and residential markets, and GE is likely to divest its power conversion business due to low profit margins in that sector.

Talk of ‘grid-parity’ and ‘subsidy-free’ solar has had industry figures cherishing the ideal of a sector that can operate free of the caprices of government but a peer behind the latest global PV funding figures demonstrates just how dependent on policy the solar industry remains.

The nation’s annual Economic Survey placed EVs at the heart of India’s decarbonization and called for an industrial hub where electric vehicles and the batteries to run them could be manufactured.

Citing the risk to solar projects, lobby group the National Solar Energy Federation Of India has asked the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to exclude flat steel products coated with alloy of aluminum and zinc from anti-dumping duty.

Unlike the other, India-wide 1.2 GW tender rolled out simultaneously yesterday, the delivery point for a second wave of projects will be designated inter-state transmission system substations in the state of Madhya Pradesh.