09 December 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government is planning to amend the Electricity Act 2003 in a fundamental power sector reform. The goal is to break the monopoly of power distribution companies on the end consumer and allow for more effective competition in the last-mile delivery and sale of power (
02 December 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Last week, speaking at a UNEP and FICCI conference on ‘Designing a sustainable financial system for India’, the Minister for Coal, Power and Renewable Energy, Shri. Piyush Goyal reiterated the government’s plan to achieve 100 GW of solar by 2022. This is a very ambitious goal – to say the least. Is it feasible? The short answer is: it depends on political will. And it will...
26 November 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Over the past few weeks, India’s minister for power, coal and renewables, Mr. Piyush Goyal has publicly stated on several occasions that he envisions India to have 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. This is very ambitious. For this target to be achieved, India would soon have to start ramping up solar capacity at a pace similar to that of China, which plans to add another 40 GW in the next...
18 November 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
The Indian government clearly understands the impact and importance of low cost finance for the solar sector in the country and has taken up efforts to woo international institutional capital to the sector. Latest step in this direction is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between US-EXIM and IREDA for a financing support of up to USD 1 billion (INR 61 billion) for...
28 October 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
30 September 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Following the U.N. climate week, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is meeting US President Barack Obama on the 29th and 30th September 2014. According to reports (refer), one of the items on the agenda is...
23 September 2014 | BRIDGE TO INDIA
Around this time last year, after a lot of mid-course process changes, quick fixes and haggling, Tamil Nadu’s power generation company TANGEDCO (acting as a process manager) signed power purchase agreements for 708 MW. They had a “workable” tariff of INR 6.48/kWh and a 5% escalation (equivalent to around INR 8.3/kWh on a levelized basis). However, this tariff was rejected by the...
16 September 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
The new government in India is considering revamping the country’s flagship National Solar Mission (NSM) and making it considerably more ambitious. The recently announced draft scheme for solar parks (refer) is only a part...
22 July 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
Last week, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) released a draft document outlining allocation process for another 1,500 MW of solar PV capacity under phase two of India’s National Solar Mission (NSM) (refer). Allocations will be made...
15 July 2014 | Jasmeet Khurana
In the budget, presented last week, the new government took further measures to support solar manufacturing by eliminating the ‘inverted duty’ structure. ‘Inverted duty’ meant that while there was an import duty exemption on finished solar modules, there was no similar exemption on raw materials and components used in module assembly, thus putting Indian manufacturers at a disadvantage...
