MNRE
September 7, 2013
MNRE or Ministry of New and renewable Energy is a Government body formed to develop and promote the Renewable Energy usage in India. MNRE has designed […]
August 29, 2013
A new Body to manage Wind Energy in India India has not done anything much in offshore wind energy installations with other countries such as China, […]
July 31, 2013
Only 1 Solar Thermal Plant built out of 5 Plants India had allotted 50% of the power target to be generated during Phase 1 of the […]
July 4, 2013
REC in India The Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) scheme is the major policy initiative taken by the central government to use a market based mechanism, to promote green […]
July 1, 2013
What is a Solar powered Water Pump As the title suggests the solar powered water pumps, use solar energy to run. These solar powered water pumps […]
June 22, 2013
India’s Central Government has mostly mismanaged the central program for promoting solar energy in India. Despite a massive crash in solar component prices, demand in India […]
May 8, 2013
Anti-dumping Duty in India The Government of India is in a fix trying to decide whether to impose anti-dumping duties or not. The Government’s intention is […]
May 7, 2013
Tamil Nadu’s new Subsidy for Rooftop Installations The Indian State of Tamil Nadu had set a target of 350 MW of solar rooftop installation by 2015. […]
January 18, 2013
Biomass Projects in India In the last 10 years, about 96 projects aggregating to 656 MW have already been in operation and about 60 projects aggregating […]
December 17, 2012
Small Hydro Power – Investment Opportunities A large number of SHP projects were established in the public sector during the onset of the early 1990s. However, […]
December 14, 2012
The Solar Policy unveiled by Tamil Nadu has generated a huge amount of investor enthusiasm with a target of generating almost 3 GW of solar power […]
November 7, 2012
Solar Power in India As a tropically located country, India is endowed with vast solar energy potential. With about 5,000 trillion kilo-watt hour (kWh) per year, […]
October 5, 2012
Indian Smart Cities The Indian Government is not short of ideas though execution on most of the infrastructure projects is quite pathetic. With most infrastructure companies […]
September 28, 2012
Solar Water Heaters in India – 20 already account for 30% of the total water heating market in the country and are growing at a good […]
September 24, 2012
Solar Cities in India India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has come out with a scheme to promote the use of solar energy in […]
September 11, 2012
GWI had written that the Indian Wind Power Industry is facing problems in 2012 and there is a possibility that new wind capacity could fall by […]
March 1, 2012
The CSE concurs and also criticizes the support for large wind farms as well . Note the capital subsidy and depreciation given to wind farms makes it much more lucrative to just build wind energy turbines rather than on focusing on the electricity generated . This has made many wind farms generate only half of the electricity given by normal wind turbines. Note the article also emphasizes on giving subsidies to the poor through loans and subsidies for biomass energy to shift them from dirty energy sources like kerosene.
February 27, 2012
Solar Power in India grew by 400% in 2011 thanks mainly to the growth of large solar farms built using government subsidies. However there are hardly […]
January 31, 2012
Solar Power in India has taken off under the ambitious JNNSM government subsidy scheme with almost 400 MW of Solar Capacity installed in 2011 . With various states like Gujarat, Karnataka coming up with aggressive solar subsidy schemes on their own as well, solar power capacity in India should surge by around 1 GW in 2012. This has made India one of the fastest growing solar markets in the globe right now.
January 18, 2012
Wind Power in India has been wildly successful and is the 5th biggest in the world because of substantial incentives from the government. One of them has been accelerated depreciation which has made hundreds of companies and rich individuals buy small wind farms. This helps them offset their tax liabilities providing a substantial 2 digit returns. However the big drawback in this from of green subsidy is that it does not incentivize the production of wind energy. Once the wind farm is set up, the incentive to produce lots of electricity is not there unlike the case of Feed in Tariff where your returns are solely based on the electricity generation.
January 6, 2012
Note the Indian solar projects are growing continuously and with the possible additoin of 1000 mw of solar energy in 2012 we will see much larger solar installations with 100 MW solar farms being planned.Besides solar thermal power plants are bigger in size in general.While the growth of big solar installations is good, India really needs to move to rooftop small solar installations and off grid solar promotion.
January 4, 2012
JNNSM Phase 2 recieved almsot 8 times the bids with 2500 MW worth of bids out of which around 350 MW was selected for providing Feed in Tarifffs with the average tariff of Rs 8.77 or 17.5c/Kwh .Note India's execution record has not been great with only 400 MW solar capacity reached in 2011 against a target of more than 1000 MW.However weaker and unknown players have gone out of this business and the winners this time look more likely to construct these solar power plants.No doubt a massive glut of solar panels in the world with prices as low as 80-90c/watt helping .Compare that to prices of solar panels which were more than $2/watt last time.
January 3, 2012
Solar Power in India has been growing at a rapid clip due to a number of favorable factors
1) Big Energy Deficit
2) Lots of Sulight
3) Falling prices of Solar Panels
4) Favorable government subsidies.
Indian Solar Power Capacity in 2012
Many of the small firms have been weeded out and the developers and banks have got some experience in this new solar industry.Expect 2012 to be much better and expect at leas a doubling of the solar power capacity as both phase 1 and phase 2 winners in JNNSM complete projects.Rajasthan,Gujarat and Karnataka state subsidies should also see some projects being complted
Solar Power Capacity in India in 2012 should be around 1 GW which is not bad and will make it one of the top 10 Solar Markets in the world.
January 2, 2012
Ladakh,one of the most beautiful hilly regions lying near the Chinese border has one of the highest potentials in generating solar power in India.Note under JNNSM,India is targeting more than 20 GW in the next 10 years and already large solar farms are coming in the desert areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat.However,Indian policy has mostly neglected the less inhabited region of Ladakh.Most of the policy initiatives have been low key in nature and mostly to provide the region with off grid solar power,solar cookers and solar lights.What has been missed is to build massive solar panel farms and connecting them with a transmission line to the power hungry states of the North.Just like Himachal Pradesh has become a masssive hydro power exporting state,Ladakh can do the same trick with solar power.
Solar Panel prices have fallen by 50% in 2011 and now solar energy can be profitably be generate at Rs 7/kwh.While this is more expensive than coal at Rs 4/kwh,the thing to be remembered is that this power value is constant for 25 years and it has no coal disadvantages which kills thousands each year.Also it increases Indias 'energy security and reduce imports of expensive coal.It also will provide more employment and generate economic value internally beside supporting the Indian construction and EPC companies.
July 6, 2011
Solar Power in India is generating huge excitement with falling prices of Solar Power and government incentives under the JNNSM.However Subsidy of Home and Small Commercial Solar Energy Systems has not been big enough.Unlike Western Countries which are shifting their government subsidies towards smaller solar rooftop systems,the Indian government is supporting even larger solar panel plants.This will lead to only large investors,utilities and companies being left in the fray and lead to lesser competition.Also there is no support for rooftop solar which will help to broad base the reach of solar energy.A Policy which helps distributed solar like Germany will do much more to boost solar in the country than supporting massive solar plants that will only help large companies making the most of the taxpayer subsidies..Note Delhi is the only state in India which is giving primacy to rooftop solar systems and is in the process of announcing a capital subsidy soon.The reason may be that Delhi mostly consists of urban homes and they have little option.However there is a subsidy available for small home solar power systems though it is difficult to get and only possible for large corporates till now.
July 3, 2011
What is a Solar Power Plant
Solar Power Plant is a Device which generates power or electricity using Solar Energy.Note normally solar power plants refers to large ground mounted solar farms rather than the residential solar rooftop projects.However it is only a matter of usage and a solar power plant can refer to a very small solar panel of 5 watts as well as a huge solar plant of 100s of megawatts consisting of hundreds of thousands of solar panels.
Types of Solar Power Plants
Note there are a number of solar energy technologies which convert the power from the sun to electricity.However the two main solar technologies in use are Solar Thermal Technology and Solar Photovoltaic Technology.Current Solar PV Technology accounts of the lion's share of solar power generated globally and is gaining more marketshare as costs of solar power decrease.
June 30, 2011
Financing of Solar Energy Projects in India under JNNSM is proving to be a huge problem for the winners of Phase 1 auction under the federal subsidy scheme.Solar Energy in India has huge potential and attracted a number of companies to the first phase of the government tender under the 2020 plan to install 20 GW of solar energy.Note 620 MW of projects in the 5 MW and above category were awarded to 37 solar companies.Many of these firms had no background and had bid irrationally low to win these projects.With little experience and no established financial infrastructure it was an accident waiting to happen.MNRE offical has revealed that 18 of the companies have failed to achieve financial closure and would probably lose their license by the July 9 deadline.Note most of these bids were irrationally low and would not have made profits.Indian Banks and power financing institutions have refused to lend quite prudently.Note these companies are not putting collateral using their parent company's assets which means that they too doubt the feasibility of their projects.Only huge penalties will deter future non serious participants as at least half of the solar power capacity won't get installed in JNNSM Phase 1.It remains to be seen how this affects the future of the Indian Solar Mission.
June 23, 2011
Solar Energy in India has immense potential due to the massive growing demand of energy in an already deficient country.The Indian government too has realized this and set an ambitious plan of 20 GW by 2020 under JNNSM.Despite teething problems in the first phase of JNNSM,India should manage to grow its solar power capacity by more than 10x in 2011 to 700 MW.According to IREDA which is the main government renewable energy finance $2.2 billion would be invested in 2011 to grow the capacity to 700 MW.Note despite this impressive rise,note solar power in India comprises less than 0.5% of the total installed electricity capacity in the country and the growth comes off almost a non-existent base.
June 21, 2011
India's JNNSM on the other hand has seen the first phase marked by a number of teething problems like debt financing,absurdly low bidding by noname companies,poor electricity infrastructure.The Second Phase is supposed to ally these problems but the first plans do not seem to be too great.The support for large solar farms will be increased from the current 5 MW cap to 20-25 MW cap.This will lead to only large investors,utilities and companies being left in the fray and lead to lesser competition.Also there is no support for rooftop solar which will help to broadbase the reach of solar energy.A Policy which helps distributed solar like Germany will do much more to boost solar in the country than supporting massive solar plants that will only help large companies making the most of the taxpayer subsidies.Note Delhi is the only state in India which is giing primacy to rooftop solar systems and is in the process of announcing a capital subsidy soon.The reason may be that Delhi mostly consists of urban homes and they have little option.