EQ Magazine Nov 2020 Edition by EQ Int'l Solar Media Group

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CONT EN T

VOLUME 12 Issue #11

Disclaimer,Limitations of Liability While every efforts has been made to ensure the high quality and accuracy of EQ international and all our authors research articles with the greatest of care and attention ,we make no warranty concerning its content,and the magazine is provided on an>> as is <<basis.EQ international contains advertising and third –party contents.EQ International is not liable for any third- party content or error,omission or inaccuracy in any advertising material ,nor is it responsible for the availability of external web sites or their contents

india

India may call bids for setting up green hydrogen plants

41 featured

LONGi joined EV100 and EP100 Initiative to continue to Inject “Green Power” into Climate Action!

52 technology

GoodWe adds to its Utility portfolio with the official launch of HT Series 1500V 250kW PV String Inverter

The data and information presented in this magazine is provided for informational purpose only.neither EQ INTERNATINAL ,Its affiliates,Information providers nor content providers shall have any liability for investment decisions based up on or the results obtained from the information provided. Nothing contained in this magazine should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sale any securities. The facts and opinions stated in this magazine do not constitute an offer on the part of EQ International for the sale or purchase of any securities, nor any such offer intended or implied Restriction on use The material in this magazine is protected by international copyright and trademark laws. You may not modify,copy,reproduce,republish,post,transmit,or distribute any part of the magazine in any way.you may only use material for your personall,NonCommercial use, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. want to use material for any non-personel,non commercial purpose,you need written permission from EQ International.

NOVEBER- 2020

featured

Technological and Market Leader: TBEA Sunoasis Wins Three Major Awards of 2020 China Good PV Brand

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india

RBI revises Priority Sector Lending norms to boost credit to renewable energy, health infra sectors

india

India To Float Competitive Bids For 22.5 GW Of Solar Power Capacity Soon

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featured Biden’s ‘Clean’ Sweep Favours Renewables and EV Industry

65 EV & ESS EBIKEGO TO INSTALL 3,000 ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING STATIONS ACROSS FIVE CITIES BY FEBRUARY

featured

Avaada to Supply Solar Power to Bharat Forge under Group Captive Model

73 solar inverter Huawei Provides 110 MW of Solar Inverters to Krannich Solar M.E.P.E.

electric vehicle

Ather Energy raises $35 million in funding round led by Sachin Bansal

55 featured

research & Analysis

Underwater robots can inspect floating solar farms, says local tech firm

Corbella: Wind and solar now cheaper than natural gas

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NOVEMBER- 2020

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India

India may call bids for setting up green hydrogen plants State-run Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) may call bids for setting up green hydrogen plants, said two people aware of the development. Green hydrogen is a next generation fuel, with gas produced through electrolysis from water by using electricity generated through non-greenhouse gas (GHG) producing energy sources such as wind, solar or hydro. Hydrogen is also produced from others sources such as coal, oil and gas. Being emission free and having three times higher energy content per unit mass than gasoline, green hydrogen is being looked at as a preferred fuel source for both transportation and storage applications. “Hydrogen is the cleanest source of energy. The work is going on for calling these bids, and an Expression of Interest (EoI) will be floated first. Given the large clean energy programme we have, the plan is to set up these hydrogen production units by leveraging wind and solar power as hydrogen production is a very energy intensive process,” said a government official cited above requesting anonymity.

his assumes significance given that there has been rapid pace of clean energy capacity addition by India at low tariffs. Apart from reducing India’s dependence on fossil fuels; these green hydrogen plants will also help in providing grid scale storage solutions, resolving electricity transmission and evacuation related problems for clean energy projects and provide the feedstock for ammonia production.

“Apart from reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, it will also help in resolving electricity transmission and evacuation related problems for these green energy projects and can be the feedstock for ammonia production. This will also help in reducing India’ fertilizer imports,” the official added.

Post Covid-19, hydrogen has gained momentum and it is given priority in the green recovery or sustainable energy plan in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain and USA. European Union recently issued a Hydrogen Strategy for a Climate-Neutral Europe. Spain also approved a Hydrogen Roadmap while one in Canada is expected soon. Germany fixed a target of 5 GW of electrolysers by 2030 and another 5 GW by 2040. India should consider hydrogen more seriously and should have a Green Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap on fast track, said Reji Kumar Pillai, president, India Smart Grid Forum.

NOVEBER- 2020

This assumes significance given that there has been rapid pace of clean energy capacity addition by India at low tariffs. Clean energy projects now account for more than a fifth of India’s installed power generation capacity. India now has 34.6 GW of solar power and 38GW of wind power and seeks to produce 100 GW from solar projects and 60GW from wind power plants by March 2022. Some experts say that hydrogen is a technology worth investing in.

Grid scale power storage technologies are still evolving and India needs to invest in diverse technologies till one of them emerges as a clear winner. Hydrogen is one such technology worth investing in. Given that hydrogen production is energy intensive, we must explore options of generating hydrogen through cheap solar powered plants which in-turn would support hydrogen-based energy storage creating a potentially symbiotic relationship, said Rajesh Ivaturi, partner, power and utilities at EY India.

Hydrogen economy will be a cornerstone of the future energy system. Hydrogen will replace natural gas by end of next decade. Cost of renewable powered hydrogen production through electrolysis will decrease exponentially in coming years as electricity cost is the highest cost component in production, added Sanjay Aggarwal, managing director, Fortum India Pvt. Ltd. Queries emailed to SECI and a spokesperson for India’ ministry of new and renewable energy remained unanswered. A bevy of Indian public and private sector firms including NTPC Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Acme Solar and Greenko among others are looking at hydrogen as a new business opportunity. SECI’ move also comes in the backdrop of India facing deteriorating air quality levels. This also assumes significance given that solar and wind are infirm sources of energy, with storage holding the key to providing on-demand electricity from wind and solar projects.

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india “Hydrogen has many diverse uses—oil refining, ammonia and steel production, transportation (fuel cells) etc. But perhaps the most interesting one for India is its usage for power storage. As India is moving towards creating large (and fairly cheap) renewable energy capacity, which is inherently intermittent, we need to also develop large power storage solutions to address the peaking demand and to reduce the dependence on fossil fuel-based power generation,” said EY’ Ivaturi. The Union government is also exploring a plan whether an entire city’ mass transportation system such as buses can be run on hydrogen and use battery storage, provided the per km cost of operations is equal to or less than conventional fuel sources such as diesel. Experts believe that the price of hydrogen production will come down.

“Off-course hydrogen economy ecosystem will take years to develop but hydrogen economy can balance energy production and consumption, store energy, enabling decarbonization of industry, carbon free transportation along with EV and help in realizing dream of carbon neutral energy system in future,” added Aggarwal who heads Indian operations for Finland’s state-controlled power utility Fortum Oyj.

“The price of electrolyser is above eight hundred dollar per kilo-watt. As per US department of Energy’ projections this will be below $200 by 2040. But some entrepreneurs are already promising electrolyser at $550 per kilo-watt this year and grey hydrogen at $2 per kilogram. With solar power at one rupee per unit (kWh), we should be able to generate green hydrogen at one dollar per kilogram soon,” said Pillai, who is also the chairman of Global Smart Energy Federation.

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NOVEMBER- 2020

india

Niti Aayog invites bids for setting up Advance Chemistry Cell manufacturing facilities under PPP

Government think tank Niti Aayog has invited bids for setting up Advance Chemistry Cell manufacturing facilities under public private partnerships. Bids have been sought under the proposed National Programme on Advance Chemistry Cell (ACC) Battery Storage. According to draft model bid document posted on Niti Aayog’s website, the government intends to develop giga-scale advance cell manufacturing for domestic application and promotion of diverse energy sources to ensure overall energy security.

“A bidder selected through this RFP, to be eligible for this subsidy, would have to commit to set-up an Advance Chemistry Cell manufacturing facility of minimum 5 GWh capacity and establish an Advance Chemistry Cell manufacturing facility with value-addition of minimum 25 per cent at the mother unit level and minimum 60 per cent overall,” the document said.

he facilities are proposed to be set up under Public Private Partnership (PPP). Advance Chemistry Cells (ACCs) are the new generation advance storage technologies that can store electric energy either as electrochemical or as chemical energy and convert it back to electric energy as and when required. Globally, manufacturers are investing in these new generation technologies at commercial scale to cater to the expected boom in battery demand through 2030. The government approved a Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for ten key sectors, including ACC battery, telecom, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, taking the total outlay for such incentives to nearly Rs 2 lakh crore over a five-year period. The scheme will help encourage domestic manufacturing, reduce imports and generate employment as the government works to bolster economic growth. The financial outlay for the new scheme will be Rs 1,45,980 crore. The five-year PLI scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet.

Brookfield to push ahead with $513 mn India REIT IPO by 2020-end: Report

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is pushing to list a real estate investment trust in Mumbai before the end of this year, which could raise as much as Rs 38 billion ($513 million), according to people familiar with the matter.

he Canadian asset manager has received good response from investors including sovereign wealth funds and pension managers at roadshows in the past two weeks, one of the people said. Brookfield plans to continue gauging investor demand for three more weeks before proceeding with a retail offer, the person said. While Brookfield is targeting to complete the offering by the end of the year, the deal could still be delayed if there’s any unexpected market volatility, the people said, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. A representative of Brookfield declined to comment citing regulations. A successful offering will add to India’s growing number of REIT listings, including the Blackstone Group Inc.-backed Mindspace Business Parks REIT. The debut of Embassy Office Parks REIT last year marked the nation’s first such listing as the regulator kept tweaking rules to make the vehicle more attractive to developers and investors. REITs have opened a fundraising avenue for India’s cash-starved property sector.

NOVEBER- 2020

Brookfield sent out terms for the Indian REIT offering in September, Bloomberg News has reported. The IPO will also contain a secondary issue of an undisclosed amount by selling unit holders. The terms didn’t specify any listing timeline. Brookfield, which manages $550 billion in assets globally, owns and operates about 22 million square feet of office properties in India, according to its website. It also operates toll roads, solar and wind assets as well as a construction business in the South Asian nation. Last month, the asset manager agreed to acquire 12.5 million square feet of rent-yielding offices and co-working spaces from an Indian developer for $2 billion.

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india

Transaction in electricity & clean energy certificates are exempted from TCS & TDS

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued new guidelines for the applicability of Tax deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax collected at source (TCS). Under the new guidelines, e-commerce operations which include transactions in electricity and trading of clean energy certificates (REC and ESCerts) are not subjected to TCS or TDS. CBDT states that the updated guidelines are applicable from 1 october, 2020.

he Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued new guidelines for the applicability of Tax deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax collected at source (TCS). Under the new guidelines, e-commerce operations which include transactions in electricity and trading of clean energy certificates (REC and ESCerts) are not subjected to TCS or TDS. CBDT states that the updated guidelines are applicable from 1 october, 2020.

Gujarat: Solar rooftop subsidy scheme targets 8 lakh homes in 3 yrs With just 50,000 households coming forward to avail the Gujarat government’s subsidy scheme for solar rooftops in the residential sector in the past three years, the government said it has made several relaxations including extending the SURYA (Surya Urja Rooftop Yojana) scheme to cover group housing societies and residential welfare associations. By financial year 2021-22, the government targets to cover rooftops of 8 lakh households with photovoltaic systems to produce 1,600 MW of solar power.

Now a common man will be able to produce electricity by setting up photovoltaic systems on his rooftop or anywhere on his residential premises, state Energy Minister Saurab Patel said while announcing the changes. “He can use this power and can sell the additional power at the rate of Rs 2.25 per unit to the government for a period of 25 years.” Patel claimed that Gujarat was the top state in implementing solar rooftop projects in the country. The Gujarat government has commissioned 180 MW of solar power covering rooftops of 50,000 households in the residential sector, the preamble of the amended scheme states. It puts the total cost of setting up one kilowatt (KW) of solar rooftop system between Rs 46,827-33,999.“Permission will be given to 2 lakh houses on first-come-first-serve basis till March 31, 2020,” Patel said, adding that 1,600 MW of solar power will be produced through rooftops in Gujarat by 2021-22. He said the state government had made a provision of Rs 1,000 crore in the current year’s budget in this regard and that the state government would provide 40 per cent subsidy to solar rooftop systems of up to 2 KW capacity and 20% percent subsidy to those of 3 KW to 10 KW capacity. “Under the old scheme, a residential owner cannot set up a solar rooftop system that is more than the contracted load. But under the new scheme, the owner can set up any capacity solar rooftop system but the state government will not give any subsidy beyond 10 KW,” Patel said.

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he minister said the subsidy would also be extended to cover group housing societies and residential welfare associations, and they can set up the rooftop system for running common amenities such as the water pump for the borewell, gymnasium, swimming pool and lighting in common areas. The subsidy — 20 per cent for solar rooftop system, limited to 10KW per house — shall not exceed 500 KW per society or association. Patel said the state government had given letters for empanelling 450 firms manufacturing solar rooftop systems. 70 companies have already signed agreements with us,” he said, adding that a consumer can select any of the empanelled companies for setting up rooftop systems and submit an application online. The company will also provide a five-year contract. Solar cells and modules of non-Indian origin will not be eligible for subsidy under the scheme, and only new plant and machinery will be allowed for installation. Industrial, commercial and other consumers including government and semi-government organisations will be eligible for this subsidy. The solar rooftop system which has been registered under the Solar Power Policy 2015, prior to the introduction of the scheme will also be eligible.

NOVEMBER- 2020

india

RBI revises Priority Sector Lending norms to boost credit to renewable energy, health infra sectors

Revised PSL guidelines lay special emphasis on boosting lending to renewable energy, health infrastructure sectors Bank finance to start-ups up to Rs 50 crore, loans to farmers for installing solar panels, setting up Compressed Bio-Gas freshly added to PSL category

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has comprehensively reviewed the Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines to enable better credit penetration to credit deficient areas and increase the lending to small and marginal farmers and weaker sections.

he revised guidelines’ focus is to boost credit to renewable energy, and health infrastructure, RBI said. The revised PSL norms are aimed at aligning the same with “emerging national priorities and bring sharper focus on inclusive development, after having wide-ranging discussions with all stakeholders”, the central bank said in a statement. The RBI said bank finance to start-ups up to Rs 50 crore; loans to farmers for installation of solar power plants for solarisation of grid-connected agriculture pumps and loans for setting up Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) plants have been included as fresh categories eligible for finance under priority sector. To address regional disparities in the flow of priority sector credit, higher weightage have been assigned to incremental priority sector credit in ‘identified districts’ where priority sector credit flow is comparatively low. The targets prescribed for “small and marginal farmers” and “weaker sections” are being increased in a phased manner. Higher credit limit has been specified for Farmers Producers Organisations (FPOs)/Farmers Producers Companies (FPCs) undertaking farming with assured marketing of their produce at a pre-determined price. Loan limits for renewable energy have been increased (doubled). For improvement of health infrastructure, credit limit for health infrastructure (including those under ‘Ayushman Bharat’) has been doubled.

NOVEBER- 2020

What is Priority sector lending? Priority sector lending refers to those sectors or areas of the economy which may not get timely and adequate credit. The RBI requires Indian banks to allocate certain portion of their overall lending for sectors mentioned under PSL. These areas of focus for PSL include Agriculture, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Export Credit, Education, Housing, Social Infrastructure, Renewable Energy. Reserve Bank of India has, from time to time, issued a number of guidelines to banks on Priority Sector Lending. These were last reviewed in April 2015 and for urban and cooperative banks in May 2018. PSL guidelines are applicable to all domestic scheduled commercial banks (excluding Regional Rural Banks and Small Finance Banks) and foreign banks with 20 branches and above.

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india

1st solar-based water supply project of India launched in Arunachal Pradesh Union Jal Shakti Minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has launched India’s first solar-based Integrated Multi-Village Water Supply Project (IMVWSP) in Arunachal Pradesh. The solar-based lift water supply project is ‘first of its kind’ in the country, and has been commissioned at a cost of Rs 28.50 crore. However, such projects will be carried out in other parts of the country too.

About the project: The project would provide drinking water to 17,480 people in 39 villages of Lower Dibang Valley district in Arunachal Pradesh. The solar-based Integrated Multi-Village Water Supply Project has been designed as an integrated project with three components, which are drinking water, green energy and tourism. The project uses a green energy-solar grid, SCADA automation system, pre-fabricated zinc alum storage tank and HDPE conduit for mains, sub-mains and distribution networking system. The project also includes amusement park including swimming pool, amphitheatre, fountains, and sit-outs.

NIMMA says MNRE Supports Solar MSME’s Manufacturers on BIS Issue a Big Relief Ministry of New & Renewable Energy came out with a official notification extending the exemption for the BIS Certification for solar module manufacturers with upto 50MW annual production capacity. It benefits close to 100 Such module Manufacturers.

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n this Ocassion, NIMMA President Mr. Manish Gupta expressed joy and thank MNRE for their support to MSME Module manufacturing Companies. The Module Manufacturers also thank NIMMA and ASIA along with MNRE for their effort and understanding. The exemption will last as long as the IEC certificate is valid and as soon as the IEC certificate will expire, the module manufacturer will have to obtain compulsory BIS certificate.This is a big relief in the current circumstances of COVID impacted businesses and specially when the module mankers were expecting BCD on module/cells imports.

NOVEMBER- 2020

india

Govt. allows pastureland owned by small farmers for solar power plant development

In an attempt to bring even small farmers under its solarisation drive, government has allowed use of pastureland and marshy land for the development of grid connected solar-power plants.

he ministry of new and renewable energy had amended guidelines of of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyaan (PMKUSUM) Scheme is expanding its scope to include new areas for setting up of solar power plants in rural agricultural areas. The scheme so far allowed power plants only on barren, fallow and agricultural land. But with the changes, solar power plants can now also be installed on pastureland and marshy land of farmers. Changes have also been made on the size of the power plant so that it makes it easier even for small farmers to invest in power generation. Accordingly, the solar power projects smaller than 500 kW can now be permitted by States based on techno-commercial feasibility.

Also, the selected Renewable Power Generator (RPG) have been given more time to commision the project with deadline for completion being extended by three months to 12 months from the date of issuance of Letter of Award (LoA). Moreover, no penalty will be levied on RPG for shortfall in solar power generation from minimum prescribed Capacity Utilization Factor (CUF). “The changes would allow better participation of farmers in governments renewable power initiatives and help in expanding the reach of green power to remotest corners of the country,” said an official source not willing to be named.

Few takers for solar power tender of railways, bid deadline extended Three sources in leading solar power developers said the tender by the Railway Energy Management Co Ltd (REMCL), a joint venture company of Indian Railways (49 per cent) and RITES Ltd (51 per cent), has not enthused many, leading to multiple extension of the bid deadline.

olar power project developers have given a lukewarm response to a tender for setting up 1 gigawatt of solar power plants on railways’ land, as there is 14 GW of surplus capacity available with government agency SECI, sources said. Three sources in leading solar power developers said the tender by the Railway Energy Management Co Ltd (REMCL), a joint venture company of Indian Railways (49 per cent) and RITES Ltd (51 per cent), has not enthused many, leading to multiple extension of the bid deadline. The Solar Energy Corp of India (SECI), they said, has additional/ surplus solar power capacity of 14 GW in operation and under execution at various stages, and the same should be used by the railways. SECI, the government agency that bids out solar projects, has already discovered a low tariff through competitive bids and railways could use this instead of introducing one more tender process through yet another central government entity, they said. No developer has so far shown interest in the tender and made a bid, the sources said. 16

NOVEBER- 2020

In April this year, REMCL had floated a tender for setting up 1 GW land based solar PV power plant in vacant railway land under tariff based competitive bidding. Initially, the last date for putting in initial bids was June 30, but it was extended a few times, the latest being till November 25, 2020. Bidders have been asked to quote a tariff they would charge for generating electricity using solar energy at projects of over 50 MW each. REMCL was incorporated to manage energy management portfolio of Indian Railways which includes procurement of economical power through open access and harnessing green energy. It has identified land in West Bengal (125 MW), Chhattisgarh (205 MW), Gujarat (226 MW), Odisha (59 MW), Madhya Pradesh (58 MW), Rajasthan (68 MW), Uttar Pradesh (20 MW), Haryana (19 MW), Assam (14 MW), Maharashtra (92 MW), Karnataka (20 MW), Jharkhand (13 MW), Telangana (7 MW) and Andhra Pradesh (18 MW). www.EQMagPro.com

india

Durgapur Barrage lock gate crisis: DVC to reduce power generation

The Damodar Valley Corporation has decided to regulate power generation upto 1000 MW in a power plant in West Bengal due to water scarcity, following damage to a lock gate of the Durgapur Barrage, an official said. The DVC will stop 500 MW power generation from Mejia Thermal Power Station.

The Mejia power unit located at Durlabhpur, 35 km from Durgapur, has a total capacity of 2340 MW. “Two power plants at Mejia and Andal are set to be affected due to lack of water caused by the lock gate crisis. We are regulating generation of 500 MW at mejia by this afternoon and another 500 MW by early next morning,” a senior DVC official told . “After regulating, we can manage to generate 1340 MW at Mejia and 1000 MW (2x500MW) at Andal (in Durgapur Steel Plant) for 3-4 days given the water in their reservoirs,” he said.

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he Durgapur Steel Thermal Power Station (Andal plant) requires 90,000 cubic metres of water from the Damodar river per day. “If the lock gate is not repaired immediately, the situation will worsen leading to blackout and will also hit steel production of Durgapur Steel Plant,” sources said.Meanwhile, restoration work of the collapsed lock gate no 31 of Durgapur barrage is yet to resume. The work of erecting ring barriers to divert incoming water towards other lock gates to restrict water at the affected zone was under progress. The lock gate number 31 of Durgapur barrage suffered heavy damages and became nonfunctional. The Durgapur barrage has a capacity of 10.273 million cubic metres of water, which has shrunk by 37 per cent due to siltation over past six decades. Despite this, the barrage had provided 2.70 lakh acre-feet of irrigation to the downstream districts last year during kharif cultivation season.

NOVEMBER- 2020

india

Karnataka keen to engage with the UK on renewable energy front: CM Karnataka would like to engage with the UK on the renewable energy front, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said. He stated this during a virtual meeting with Lord Tariq Ahmad, UK’s Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

hey discussed bilateral cooperation and collaboration in various sectors such as renewable energy, pollution control, animation/gaming, regulatory sandboxes and waste management, a CMO release said. “Karnataka is one of the fastest growing technology hubs in the world. The State has become the prime spot for global industries to invest here due to availability of skilled workforce and other favourable factors.

Being a champion of renewable energy production, Karnataka would like to engage with the UK on forecasting, scheduling and ancillary service solutions on the renewable energy front, Yediyurappa said. Lord Tariq Ahmad said as the economies around the world recover from the impact of COVID-19, this was the time to look to the future. “We must take the opportunity to build back better to create a world that is green, clean and sustainable. We want to work even more closely with India to mobilise global action at COP26, because we both lead by example,” he added. British Deputy High Commissioner to Karnataka and Kerala Jeremy Pilmore-Bedford said application of green tech was at the heart of the UK’s ambition to build back better from the current Covid crisis, the release added.

The Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Limited has approved a proposal to equip stand-alone mini-drinking water supply systems to 200 villages with solar power.

Rajasthan to run 200 rural water supply systems on solar power

NOVEBER- 2020

The pilot project will reduce the dependence of rural areas. They will be relieved of energy cost for drinking water and worries of power outages. The solarisation of water pumps will also help the government in saving electricity, money and environment, RRECL Chairman Subodh Agarwal said. As per the statement, the locations have been identified from a list of 248 areas specified by the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED). The pilot project is estimated to cost Rs 8 crore, it added.

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india

Rawmate Solutions Pioneers Solar Community Irrigation Project Solar power has been making rapid strides in the Distributed Renewable Energy systems network with increased adoption of solar water pumping solutions across the country.

n this sphere, Chhattisgarh has taken the lead and been the frontrunner across all states in India. One of the leading system integrators, Rawmate Solutions has pioneered the design, installation and commissioning of the first large scale Solar Community Irrigation Project in Village Borenda, District Durg, Chhattisgarh. The project was conceptualised and executed under the guidance of the Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA)

This project is unique as it taps the free flowing and perennially available water from the river Kharun and distributes it across 100 hectares and directly benefits 217 beneficiary farmers. This system is powered by 100 HP(20HP*5nos) pump sets, and has a pipeline distribution network of close to 21 kms. This novel project came as boon to the farmers of the region who were till now completely dependent on rain fed agriculture. The project was completed at an approximate cost of Rs 3.3 crs and was recently inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Shri Bhupesh Baghel

The execution of the project however was not easy. As Mr K S Khurana, Partner- Tatva Group tells us, there were significant challenges that were overcome on this journey. COVID 19, followed by the lockdown and incessant monsoons were all elements that threatened to derail the project but driven by passion and persistence, the project was commissioned successfully. Rawmate Solutions has also been further mandated by CREDA to execute 3 more such projects across the state of Chhattisgarh, where work is currently ongoing. Two of these projects are in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. These projects shall ring a transformational change in the lives of the farmers

Solar power equipment production for 35,000 MW capacity on cards The government has received expressions of interest to set up manufacturing capacity of nearly 35,000 MW of solar equipment, union power and renewable energy minister RK Singh said He also said talks were ongoing with the finance ministry to implement the basic customs duty on foreign solar imports. “I have reminded the finance minister that we are waiting for the customs duty to come. They (domestic industry) are all waiting for the customs duty,” the minister added.

omestic manufacturers have been anticipating the duty on solar equipment since FM Nirmala Sitharaman included it in her union budget proposal earlier this year. RK Singh had told reporters in June that such a basics custom duty was supposed to be imposed from August 1 to prevent the dumping of Chinese goods and protect national interests, where 80% of solar equipment is sourced from. However, due to disagreements over the “grandfathering” clause which would provide exemptions to power purchase agreements already signed, the implementation remained delayed. Adding a “grandfather clause” to existing power purchase agreements would mean that there is an understanding between solar developers and the government that the project costs more than the allocated budget at the time of closing of the deal, and hence, compensation will be provided to the developers via the distribution companies. Instead, a formula based on the coal cess will be implemented to recover the losses incurred due to the safeguard and basic customs duties, Singh said. Although this is expected to provide relief to the generators, consumers might bear the immediate brunt of such a policy.

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NOVEMBER- 2020

india

India To Float Competitive Bids For 22.5 GW Of Solar Power Capacity Soon Bids to enhance solar and wind power installations will continue to grow as India has committed to the world to enhance its dependence on renewable power, a top executive with a renewable energy company said.

Speaking at the G-20 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “We will meet our goal of 175 GW of renewable energy well before the target of 2022. Now, we are taking a big step ahead by seeking to achieve 450 GW by 2030.”

odi government is confident of achieving these targets of probably the world’s largest renewable energy programme in history. Currently, India’s solar power capacity stands at about 35 GW and the government is planning to increase it to 100 GW in the next couple of years to meet its ambitious targets under National Solar Mission. Also, India has 9.5 GW of wind power capacity under execution and new bids are expected in near future. Of the country’s 370 GW of total electricity generation capacity, renewable power accounts for close to 24 per cent that is expected to grow year-on-year. The Solar Energy Corporation India (SECI) is the is the nodal agency to facilitate the implementation of the Mission and managing 16.2 GW of tenders. SECI has invited 7.5 GW of the tender to commission solar projects in Jammu & Kashmir, 2.5 GW in Karnataka and 6.2 GW anywhere the developers want in India. The SECI will sign power purchase agreements (PPA) with the lowest bidders after tying up with state-owned distribution companies (discoms) to supply renewable power.

Since early 2019, SECI has introduced a mechanism to sign PPAs with successful developers after tying up with the discoms. Such future planning enables SECI to strike balance between the interests of renewable power project developers and discoms while assuring adequate generation capacity in pipeline for the future. Besides SECI, public sector utilities and Indian Railways too are planning to float tenders for sizable solar power capacity to enhance the share of renewable energy in their portfolio. Since 2019, SECI has introduced a new mechanism to strike balance between interests of developers and discoms.

“I have formed the International Solar Alliance, which has 80-85 member countries. They have become a part of the movement in the entire world. Since it was done with clean heart conviction, the result is that India is making giant strides as far as solar power is concerned. Today, the price per unit has gone down to less than Rs 2 from Rs. 12-13,” said PM Modi while addressing 8th Convocation Ceremony of Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, at Gandhinagar, through video conference.

NOVEBER- 2020

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ReNew Power’s $325 mn offshore bond issuance oversubscribed six times

Goldman Sachs-promoted ReNew Power raised $325 million via offshore bond sale. The dollar bond offer was subscribed 6x with the total offer book at $2 billion.

his is the first successful bond issuance by an Indian renewable company since the Covid-induced economic slowdown. In June, SoftBank Energy, an Indian clean energy unit of Japan-based SoftBank, withdrew its $600-million bond issuance due to investors’ concerns on the price-cost ratio of its solar projects. Company executives said this was also the cheapest bond offering by any renewable company. The bonds when issued were priced at 5.87 per cent. However, the rate was reduced to 5.37 per cent, but the investors continued to book, said the executive.

We were monitoring the market when it got shut due to Covid. We were ready with portfolio of assets for refinancing. Lot of investors came in from the US and there was an overwhelming demand from Asian markets — almost 56 per cent of the total book, including US-based investors with presence in Asia, such as PIMCO and Blackrock. Demand came in from more than 130 accounts, Kailash Vaswani, president (corporate finance) of ReNew Power, told Business Standard. This is ReNew’s second bond offering in this calendar year. It raised $450 million via dollar bonds in January when it was oversubscribed three times. D Muthukumaran, chief financial officer of ReNew Power, said: “We like to have diversified sources of capital. Currently, we have about $2 billion from the bond market, including the latest bond, out of the $4 billion of total debt. The objective is to free up limits for under construction assets. When the assets are in steady stage, refinance them in the dollar bond market.” ReNew Power has a total installed capacity of 5.4 Gw of solar and wind power. It also has 4.6 Gw of renewable power capacity under construction.

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Apart from Goldman Sachs, ReNew is backed by equity investors such as Tokyo-based JERA, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Global Environment Fund. In July, the company had announced its entry into solar manufacturing. The company has indicated it will invest close to Rs 1,500-2,000 crore for its manufacturing unit of 2 Gw of solar cells and modules. Business Standard had earlier reported the company’s expansion into the power transmission sector and to have a complete energy supply chain.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Clean energy firms queue up for IPOs Companies such as Warburg Pincus-backed rooftop solar energy firm CleanMax Solar and Morgan Stanley-owned Continuum Wind Energy are some of the companies that have held talks with advisers on IPOs

everal renewable energy companies in India, especially those owned or backed by financial sponsors, have started exploring plans to go public, either in India or abroad. Mint reported on 18 October that Goldman Sachs-backed ReNew Power Ventures Pvt. Ltd, one of the top renewable energy companies in India, is exploring an overseas listing, possibly in the US or UK. Companies such as Warburg Pincus-backed rooftop solar energy firm CleanMax Solar and Morgan Stanleyowned Continuum Wind Energy are some of the other companies that have held talks with advisers on initial public offerings (IPOs). CleanMax Solar is backed by investors such as Warburg Pincus, UK Climate Investments and International Finance Corp. In 2012, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, which manages more than $4 billion in assets globally, invested $212 million in India-focused Continuum Wind.

“There is a definite buzz around IPOs in the renewable energy sector. ReNew will lead the way, and depending on how that goes, others will follow. Most discussions are at initial stages, and no firm decision has been taken on going public. They are likely to take the final call in the next month or two,” said a person aware of the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity as the talks are private.

Interest is high among financial investor-backed renewable firms, a second person added. “Some of these platforms have reached a significant scale where an M&A is not the most optimum route of exit for investors. Such investors now want to see if they can tap capital markets,” he said. To be sure, this is not the first time ReNew Power is planning to go public.The company filed a draft IPO prospectus in May 2018, which would have seen its lead investor Goldman sell shares worth over ₹4,000 crore. The plan was eventually shelved. However, industry experts believe that this time around the situation is far more conducive for renewable companies to tap the markets.

The IPO market for renewable energy is quite different now from what it was a couple of years ago. The shift from high-carbon fuels to clean energy is now in full swing, and renewable energy companies are gaining significant attraction. This is due to the government’s initiatives, including the expenditure undertaken by the dedicated public sector undertakings on climate-related mitigation activities and increasing investor interest internationally in clean energy companies, said Ravi Dubey, a partner at law firm IndusLaw. He added that the investor response to recent public offering by Array Technologies in the US, coupled with various SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) having raised money to target clean energy companies, indicates renewed investor interest in the sector.

PM Modi e-inaugurates 45 MW production plant of Monocrystalline Solar Photo Voltaic Panel Prime Minister Narendra Modi e-inaugurated 45 MW production plant of Monocrystalline Solar Photo Voltaic Panel at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University on November 21. “Today, you are entering the industry at a time when due to the pandemic, major changes are taking place in the energy sector of the world. At this time, there are many opportunities for growth of entrepreneurship and employment,” said PM Modi at 8th convocation day of Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University.

NOVEBER- 2020

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How Hydrogen Is and Isn’t the Future of Energy

Surely hydrogen is the future of energy. Why else would the European Union, as part of its Green Deal, plan to shovel 470 billion euros ($550 billion) into infrastructure to electrolyze and use the stuff? Why else would China, Japan and South Korea be placing their own huge bets on the gas? The enthusiasm about hydrogen has a simple reason: Whether it’s used in a fuel cell or burned to create heat, the only “exhaust” it emits is innocently clean water. Therefore, wherever hydrogen replaces fossil fuels, it helps slow global warming. That explains the worldwide race to dominate the various niches of a market projected by some banks to be worth trillions of dollars by 2050. Then again, perhaps this is just the latest of several hydrogen bubbles, destined to pop like all the others. A first one, inflated by a seminal essay from 1970, ballooned the following decade before going pfft in the 1980s. A second expanded and popped along with the tech bubble around 2000. Maybe hydrogen is the future … and always will be. It certainly has daunting disadvantages. Yes, it’s the most common element in the universe. But it doesn’t appear in its pure form on earth. So it must be separated by running an electric current through water to split the oxygen and hydrogen atoms apart. That takes energy, which better be “green” — that is, captured from the sun, wind or other renewables. Otherwise, what’s the point?

his process makes green hydrogen expensive relative to both fossil fuels like natural gas and hydrogen captured in less clean ways. BloombergNEF, our parent company’s energy institute, reckons that technological improvements will rapidly make it cheaper in the coming years. But even then, it’s still hard to transport and store. Unless combined with other chemicals, it must be compressed to 700 times atmospheric pressure or refrigerated to minus 253 degrees Celsius. Hydrogen also likes to explode. These drawbacks all but disqualify hydrogen from the application that currently gets the most hype: as a fuel to power cars, vans and trucks. On almost every count, vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells lose against their “clean energy” rivals — electric cars running on batteries. For a start, the hydrogen cars are only half as efficient. If an electric car converts 86% of the energy originally harnessed by a wind turbine into moving the vehicle forward, the hydrogen car has access to only about 45%. A car with a fuel cell also has more moving parts and is more expensive to maintain than one with a battery. And, unlike the battery car, it can’t be “reloaded” at home.

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This is bad news especially for Toyota Motor Corp., Hyundai Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd., the carmakers that are placing the biggest bets on hydrogen in transportation. The case for hydrogen trucks is also weak. Michael Liebreich, BloombergNEF’s founder, reckons hydrogen doesn’t even make sense for trains. It would merely eliminate the need to electrify the track, while locking in a more complex and less efficient solution. It’s only in long-haul aviation or oceanic shipping where hydrogen might beat electric batteries, thanks to its higher energy density. The batteries to get a plane to the other side of the world would be too big and heavy. Hydrogen doesn’t work much better in heating residential buildings: It’s usually easier to use green electricity to power heat pumps, which can also be “reversed” for cooling. In most industrial uses for heat, hydrogen also loses out to electricity. The long-term solution to slow global warming is therefore to electrify everything, as long as that electricity comes from renewable sources. Aye, there’s the rub. We simply can’t run everything on electricity. And we won’t ever have sun and wind amply and reliably enough to keep the lights on all the time and everywhere. So here at last is the killer app for hydrogen. It could be the fuel that picks up the slack whenever the clean power grids of the future can’t keep up. For once, the gas seems unequivocally superior to all other options, including nuclear energy. We can electrolyze the hydrogen whenever we have excess sun or wind. As Liebreich predicts, we will then store it in massive underground caverns near the central nodes of our power grids, where it can be fired up at short notice during lulls in direct electricity generation. Hydrogen is thus the plug-in technology to make the overall project of electrification and decarbonization possible. That’s huge. It also means that, while some of today’s investments in hydrogen will flop, others will pay off spectacularly. And part of their return may be saving our planet.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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How Can Hydrogen Enable 100% Renewable Targets? Industry leaders gathered recently on an ACORE State of the Industry Webinar to discuss hydrogen’s role in in the clean energy transition. The discussion was moderated by Megan Berge, Partner at Baker Botts, and featured panelists Michael Ducker, Vice President of Renewable Fuels at Mitsubishi Power, Sean Ebnet, Vice President of Business Development at Ørsted, and Skip Grow, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. The conversation centered on hydrogen’s potential for decarbonizing the economy and possible incentives for commercializing hydrogen technologies.

What is hydrogen’s role in deep decarbonization efforts? Hydrogen is an energy vector that can be stored and used as a fuel for the agricultural, industrial, transportation, building and power sectors. Hydrogen is now most commonly used as a feedstock for agricultural fertilizer production and petroleum processing. Speakers discussed how hydrogen can play a role in decarbonization efforts by replacing diesel and gasoline as a transportation fuel, providing building heat in place of fossil fuels, injecting and blending into the gas grid to displace natural gas and providing a means of energy storage to enable reliable renewable power generation. Sean Ebnet from Ørsted emphasized how viable hydrogen is for decarbonizing the economy. According to BloombergNEF’s Hydrogen Energy Outlook, clean hydrogen could eliminate up to 34% of global greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and industry. Low- and zero-carbon hydrogen production pathways include electrolysis, steam methane reformation and gasification. Each production pathway can use renewable feedstocks, including solar, wind and biogas energy. Notably, electrolysis – where water molecules are split into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity generated by cheap wind or solar power – offers an energy storage solution for renewable generation. If deployed at scale, hydrogen as energy storage could further the integration of renewables into the electric grid by making renewable energy accessible on-demand.

Clean hydrogen is steadily increasing on a global level How big is the market? According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global low-carbon hydrogen production reached 0.36 megatons in 2019 and is projected to continue increasing through 2030. Global installed electrolysis capacity reached almost 20 megawatts (MW) in 2019 and is expected to continue increasing through 2030, with 105 MW expected to come online in 2020. Global fuel cell electric vehicle (EV) deployment reached over 23,000 vehicles in 2019, with the U.S comprising about 34% of the sales. According to the California Hydrogen Business Council (CHBC), annual hydrogen production in the U.S. is now at 10 million metric tons. This growth is driven by increased demand in the transportation and industrial sectors, as well as decreasing costs of electrolyzers and fuel cells. The most ambitious plan for commercializing green hydrogen lies in the European Union’s Green Deal, which aims to increase installed electrolyzer capacity from the current 60 MW to 40 gigawatts (GW) in 2030, while keeping the costs at 24-42 billion euros ($28-50 billion). The U.S. has signed a partnership for future cooperation on hydrogen and fuel cell technologies with Japan and the European Commission. California currently incentivizes hydrogen use through its programs for alternative fuel and zero-emissions vehicles, along with the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure Capacity Credit.

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Renewable hydrogen’s role in the gas grid Use of renewable hydrogen in the gas grid could help expand demand for renewable electricity, while helping to reduce the curtailment of renewables during times of excess generation. According to the IEA, blending up to 20% of hydrogen into the gas grid on a volumetric basis would require little to no modifications to the grid infrastructure or to domestic end-user appliances. However, according to BloombergNEF’s Hydrogen Economy Outlook, significant infrastructure upgrades would be needed for hydrogen to completely replace natural gas. Michael Ducker from Mitsubishi Power believes complete replacement of gas with hydrogen is feasible through the buildout of carbon steel pipelines. There are currently 1,600 miles of 100% hydrogen pipelines in the Gulf Coast serving the petrochemicals industry.

Overcoming financing barriers to achieve scale Producing clean hydrogen can be resource-intensive. There can be high initial capital costs associated with hydrogen production infrastructure and storage under high compression and refrigeration. Skip Grow from Morgan Stanley recommended a combination of carbon pricing and state and federal level policies – such as investment tax credits, emissions standards and renewable portfolio standards – to enable renewable hydrogen technologies to become competitive with natural gas. Overall, hydrogen is a promising solution to completing the transition to 100% renewable power, but not without obstacles. What’s crystal clear, though, is that this is a market to watch. With the expansion of supportive policies, hydrogen offers a possible solution to many of the most important challenges in completing the transition to 100% renewable power.

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Avaada to Supply Solar Power to Bharat Forge under Group Captive Model

This investment by the company represents 8.98% of paid-up equity capital of ASPL and is made for purchase of solar power as Group Captive User. Bharat Forge Limited has invested Rs11.375cr representing 8.98% of paid-up equity capital of Avaada SataraMH Private Limited (ASPL). This investment has been made to enable the company to purchase solar power as Group Captive User.

vaada SataraMH belongs to Power & Renewable Energy industry. ASPL owns, operates and maintains a solar power plant for captive consumption at Village Varkute Taluka Maan District Satara in the state of Maharashtra. “The investment is made by the company to get renewable energy which will benefit to the company from cost saving perspective,” company said in a regulatory filing.

“The completion of the acquisition is subject to the receipt of all consents, permissions required to be obtained by ASPL from regulatory authority for open access for captive consumption of electricity,” it added. Despite the investment, the company stock is struggling and at around 10.28 am was trading at Rs482.40 per piece down by Rs14.35 or 2.89% from its previous closing of Rs496.75 per piece on the BSE. The scrip opened at Rs495 and has touched a high and low of Rs497.95 and Rs480.35 respectively.

Govt. aims to replace safeguard duty with custom duty to protect local manufacturers of solar equipment, says Power Minister R K Singh Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy R K Singh has said, India is going to replace the safeguard duty with the custom duty to protect the local manufacturers of solar equipment. He said, some countries are dumping solar equipment at very low prices in our country to destroy local manufacturers.

Talking exclusively to AIR News, Mr. Singh said, India wants to expand its export base in the solar energy sector like wind energy wherein the country is not only self sufficient but also an exporter. He said, India has the maximum growth and demand of renewable energy as per capita energy consumption is very low in the country. Talking about the production linked incentive scheme to boost the local manufacturing sector, the Minister said, this scheme will further accelerate the manufacturing. Terming the PM-KUSUM scheme a second green revolution, Mr. Singh said, this scheme will benefit the farmers by providing subsidy for setting up solar pumps and solar power generation capacity on their barren lands. The Minister said that the cost of solar power will come down in future with the increased efficiency of solar modules, cells and storage capacity. He said, this will help the consumer to a great extent by providing cheap electricity.

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NOVEMBER- 2020

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Biden’s ‘Clean’ Sweep Favours Renewables and EV Industry Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has provided a huge boost to the shares of electric-vehicle makers and renewable energy firms, as the U.S. President-elect has promised the ‘Build Back Better’ policy goals for clean energy and manufacturing.

hile stocks of these companies have been on a tear in 2020 so far, with frenzied buying visible in the sought-after Tesla and Nikola stocks, Biden’s victory cemented investors’ positive bet on the sector and boosted these names. For this week, we have divided the charts of the two sectors in segments of year-to-date returns and returns as of August 19, 2020, when Biden was officially nominated as the Democrats’ presidential nominee. This assumes significance given Biden’s known stance on clean energy and automotive space, which formed a part of his bigger economic plan that he had released in July this year.

Electric Vehicles Tesla has witnessed a dream run for any investor, including a 5:1 stock split that the company announced this year, helping it soar a whopping 389.55% so far this year. Let’s take a look at shares of other such stocks and associated sectors such as battery makers.

Electric Vehicle Stocks

The chart above shows enormous gains for electric delivery and utility vehicles maker Workhorse Group at more than 500 percent, followed by Tesla and Nikola. Interestingly, soon after Biden’s announcement as the nominee, and the resultant, the closely contested polls between him and the incumbent President Donald Trump ensured the gains had steadied against the frenzied buying seen throughout the year.

What’s driving these stocks? While a future with e-vehicles as the source of transport across sectors boosted stocks in this space, a huge jump in the adoption of electric vehicles by people has also aided the stocks’ rally. Data estimates that a yearly growth in buying e-vehicles by people has risen from 46 percent to 69 percent between 2010 and now. Consumers have become more concerned about the environment and are boosting charging infrastructure and vehicle driving ranges, as per this report. Moreover, Democrat Biden’s victory has ensured a renewed push with the help of his plan for electric vehicles and related industries. Here’s a look at some of the initiatives he plans to take over: Building at least 50,000 charging stations in the country. Having electric vehicles for all government vehicle fleet, cars for postal services, and other federal businesses. Overtaking China in making electric vehicles. Giving rebates to customers who opt for green vehicles. Creating a million new jobs in the U.S. auto industry. Increasing battery-related research and development.

Data as of Novemebr 09, 2020, Source Yahoo Finance

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A clean sweep?

Companies in the renewable energy space have also seen stunning returns, notably among names such as Sunrun Inc, First Solar Inc, NextEra Energy, and Canadian Solar, to name a few.

Renewable Energy Stocks

Data as of Novemebr 09, 2020, Source Yahoo Finance

On a year-to-date basis, firms such as First Solar — the largest U.S.-based solar panel maker, along with Brookfield Renewable Partners, and JinkoSolar Holding have recorded gains in the range of 50 percent to 162 percent, with Ormat Technologies picking up pace soon after Biden’s announcement in August.

Some of the reasons behind the rally in renewable energy space has been a better-than-expected earnings scenario amid the pandemic and their growth projections, going forward. Additionally, China’s vow to be carbon neutral by 2060 and expectations that the U.S. election was set to reshape America’s energy sector fuelled the rally, as per this Financial Times report from late-October. And Biden, indeed, does have major plans for a clean energy-driven economy, amid this $2 trillion plan to revive the country from the coronavirus crisis. The Democrat is expected to reinstate the legal basis for California’s zero-emission vehicle rules and turn around Trump’s decision to ease fuel efficiency and carbon emission requirements through 2025, as per a Reuters report. He has also outlined an agenda that includes a $700 billion investment in procurement and research and development of technologies such as clean energy, along with committing to re-join the Paris agreement. Among the several clean energy initiatives by Biden is the goal to achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050 and achieving 100 percent clean electricity standard by 2035.

In a nutshell

Clean energy and electric-vehicle companies have found favour among investors in the year so far. They will keep an eye on Biden’s policy announcements in the sector and the earnings growth by these companies under his administration.

NATIONAL PROGRAMME ON ADVANCE CHEMISTRY CELL (ACC) BATTERY STORAGE

Advance Chemistry Cells (“ACCs”) are the new generation advance storage technologies that can store electric energy either as electrochemical or as chemical energy and convert it back to electric energy as and when required. Globally, manufacturers are investing in these new generation technologies at commercial scale to fill the expected boom in battery demand through 2030.

onsidering its importance and the emphasis on transition to a clean energy economy, the Government of India (“GoI”) in March 2019, launched the National Mission on Transformative Mobility & Battery Storage (the “Mission”), under the Chairmanship of the CEO, NITI Aayog. The Mission, apart from notifying various policy interventions to promote electric vehicle penetration in India, has proposed the National Programme on Advance Chemistry Cell Battery Storage (the “Programme”), which is pending Union Cabinet’s approval, to support 50 Giga Watt hours (“GWh”) of domestic ACC manufacturing. This umbrella-level initiative proposes various fiscal incentives through a single-window mechanism, to make domestic ACC manufacturing industry, globally competitive. In additional the Programme also proposes a composite framework for imposition of suitable Basic Custom Duty with the intent to promote phased manufacturing of ACCs and its components in India and makes recommendations for promoting the overall market demand for ACCs in India.

The Hon’ble Finance Minster of India too in her Budget 2019-20 and later in her ‘Atma-Nirbhar Bharat’ speech, reaffirmed Government’s intent to extend incentives and invite domestic and global companies through a transparent competitive bidding mechanism to set-up mega-manufacturing plants in sunrise & advance technology areas such as Lithium Storage Batteries etc., in order to boost the overall Economic Growth and promote Make in India. This is a first of its kind incentive initiative by the Government to promote Make in India and to attract global investments into setting-up of ‘Gigafactories’ in India. The Structure of the documents and the Model of the bid adopted under the Programme encompasses following key features, first, the cash subsidy shall be offered on output, i.e. the volume of cells manufactured and sold by the beneficiaries. www.EQMagPro.com

Second, it’s a technology agnostic initiative, whereby only cells with higher performance specifications (i.e., Energy Density & Cycle Life) shall be eligible to avail the incentives. While the subsidy benchmarks shall be determined in a manner that cells with better quality or performance characteristics attract higher subsidy, thereby encouraging manufacturers to invest into Research & Development and to Manufacture such cells in India. Third, a ‘QCBS’ (i.e., Value Weighted) based bidding process on Page 3 of 187 prospective commitment criteria shall be followed, to promote large scale capacity deployment with emphasis on promoting domestic manufacturing and ensuring transparency, The participants shall be ranked on the basis of their submissions, and capacities shall be allocated in the order of their ranking, with the entity ranked 1 allocated the capacity first, followed by entity ranked 2, and so on, till a cumulative capacity of 50 GWh per year has been allocated. The subsidy support will be limited to a cumulative 50 GWh of ACC manufacturing capacity in India, with a single beneficiary not allowed more than 20 GWh cell manufacturing facility. Furthermore, to encourage economies of scale, minimum bid may be restricted to 5 GWh capacity, which may be developed in phases over a five-year window. Last but not the least, in order to ensure the bankability of the manufacturing facility and with emphasis upon key performance indicators, the incentive framework has been fused with the principles of Public Private Partnership (“PPP”). The structure thus adopted for the Programme bid documents ensures that there is an optimal sharing of risk between the beneficiary firm and the Government, and thus expected to bolster investors’ confidence and become instrumental in putting India as a leader on the world map in ACC manufacturing.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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WAAREE becomes the first Indian PV manufacturer to get NABL Accreditation for its PV test Lab WAAREE Energies Ltd, has become the first module manufacturer In India to get NABL Accreditation for its PV module test lab (PMTL). This state of the art lab is located at India’s Largest Module manufacturing facility in Gujarat. The Laboratory houses world class testing equipment and is capable to perform more than 30 critical IEC tests.

AAREE’s Lab is also India’s first IEC-CB-CTF (Customer test facility) from Intertek, for reliability testing and certification. This NABL Accredited test laboratory, is instrumental in the design & safety qualification, accelerated testing of PV Module to maintain the quality of product for the safe operation, requisite service life, reliability, and durability of PV modules in the field. The standards covered by test facility are IEC 61215-1, 1-1, 2: Terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) modules – Design qualification and type approval, IEC 61701: Photovoltaic PV Module safety qualification, IEC TS 628011: Photovoltaic (PV) modules – Test methods for the detection of potential-induced degradation & IEC 61730-1, 2: Salt mist corrosion testing of photovoltaic (PV) modules.

Speaking on this achievement, Dr. Hitesh Doshi, CMD, WAAREE Energies Ltd., said “The quality reliability and performance of our product have always being at the centre stage at WAAREE, and our quest for the best has led us to set up state of the art fully equipped laboratory. We shall now be able to carry out major testing on Solar panels in India and grant certificates. Currently there is an out flow of millions of dollars in foreign countries from India, for testing and certifications of modules, which will be saved in the future with Indigenous testing and certifications of solar modules. We believe that WAAREE’s NABL accredited lab is first such lab by an Indian Module manufacturer and shall become one of the most important milestone for the country’s march towards becoming Atmanirbhar in Solar Sector”

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The In-house lab shall give more confidence to developers, third party inspectors and consultants while opting for WAAREE Solar modules as it assures more stringent quality tests and thus ensuring the bankability of Modules. WAAREE has already supplied over 3GW modules till date globally, and commissioned over 600 MW of solar EPC projects in India & Southeast Asia. The lab was inaugurated virtually, and is now open and fully functional.

During the inauguration Mr. Ranjit Gupta, CEO Azure Power said, “This NABL lab is one of the many firsts by WAAREE, Quality and bankability of modules is a key aspect. Fact that WAAREE has taken this step demonstrates WAAREE’s commitment towards quality.

Mr. Parag Sharma, CEO, O2 Power said; “That’s an excellent move, NABL accredited lab from an Indian manufacturer. Truly, it looks world class. Look forward to seeing it benefit manufacturers. What a way to contribute to the #aatmanirbharbharat efforts!” WAAREE solar modules have been shipped to 6 continents, across 68 countries. WAAREE has maintained its position as the Bloomberg Tier 1 manufacturer for the last 22 quarters. WAAREE modules are trusted and financed by over 50 leading banks and NBFCs globally. WAAREE is the only Indian solar company to be recognized as “India’s Greatest Brand” in solar Industry. WAAREE serves over 5000 customers globally which illustrates the trust gained by the company over a period of 32 years of its existence.

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KKR Launches Renewable Energy Platform Virescent Infrastructure in India

Global investment firm KKR announced the launch of Virescent Infrastructure (“Virescent” or the “Company”), a newly created platform to acquire renewable energy assets in India.

eadquartered in Mumbai, Virescent aims to expand its diversified portfolio of operational renewable energy assets, facilitated by investments predominantly made through KKR’s infrastructure fund. Virescent looks to identify investment opportunities that have stable cash flows stemming from long-term contracts with state and central government counterparties across India. Virescent currently owns 317MWp of solar assets located in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. KKR has also entered into definitive agreements to acquire other operating solar projects across three different states. Once closed, these projects will also become part of the Virescent platform. Virescent’s launch comes as renewables are expected to become an increasingly important energy source for citizens across India. Renewable energy is estimated to comprise approximately 60% of India’s installed power capacity by 2030, from around 24% at present, according to India’s Ministry of Power and New & Renewable Energy.

Hardik Shah, a Managing Director on KKR’s Infrastructure team, said, “The launch of Virescent is a meaningful milestone for KKR’s Asia Pacific infrastructure strategy amid India’s ambitions to install 175GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022 and 450GW by 2030. We look forward to playing a part in meeting these goals and supporting the Government’s Green Energy Corridor initiative through our investment in Virescent.”

Virescent is led by CEO Sanjay Grewal, who brings to the Company more than 30 years of experience in the Indian and global infrastructure sector. He will be responsible for identifying, planning, and executing investment opportunities for Virescent.Mr. Grewal said, “Positive government initiatives have created a number of long-term investment opportunities in India’s rapidly transforming renewable energy sector. We are thrilled that Virescent will seek to invest in many of these great opportunities, in addition to achieving stable returns by acquiring high-quality, low-risk, and income- yielding assets with stable and long-term cashflows. I am truly excited to be part of this dynamic industry and for the chance to enhance KKR’s infrastructure strategy by building Virescent’s renewables portfolio.”

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KKR takes a flexible approach to infrastructure investment in Asia Pacific, and combines the capabilities of its local teams in Asia Pacific with the Firm’s global industry and operational expertise to add value to companies. Today, KKR’s global infrastructure portfolio spans sectors such as energy, transportation, telecom, oil and gas, and water. Renewable energy represents a key vertical within KKR’s infrastructure strategy, having invested in renewable energy businesses with more than 10,000 MW of total operational capacity. Virescent additionally deepens KKR’s presence in the Indian market. KKR has been investing in India since 2006, and has since honed its strategy to combine KKR’s global network with the local team’s market knowledge and investment expertise. Today, KKR aims to be a patient capital provider able to help bring flexible financial solutions to meet the needs of India’s private and public sectors. The Firm is extensively engaged in the operations and strategies of its portfolio companies across asset classes, including infrastructure, private equity and credit, to corporations and real estate businesses. KKR’s recently announced investments across asset classes includes, but is not limited to, Reliance Jio, Reliance Retail, IndiGrid, JB Chemicals, Max Healthcare and Ramky Envirotech.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Leading Power Digitalization: Huawei Launches Digital Power Club Global Tour Huawei launches Digital Power Club Global Tour in key regions including Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa region. The Global Tour aims to showcase its latest technologies related to power digitalization including Smart PV, Data Center Facility, Site Power Facility and Modular Power. With the rapid development of digitalization with everything sensing, connected, and more intelligent, it also comes with challenges such as high cost of deployment and maintenance, long deployment cycles and high power consumption. At Huawei, the Digital Power business line combines power technologies with digital technologies, providing simple, green, smart, and reliable digital power solutions to facilitate the formation of a digital world.

Huawei launches Digital Power Club Global Tour with the theme of "Leading Power Digitalization for a Green and Sustainable World".

Huawei Digital Power Club Global Tour Location

Dates

Asia - Japan (Osaka, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Fukushima and Tokyo)

September â&#x20AC;&#x201C; November, Online and Offline

Northern Africa

October 28, Online

Europe

November 12, Online

Asia - Thailand (Bangkok)

November 12, Online and Offline

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Huawei Digital Power Club Global Tour – Japan

lobal ICT energy consumption continues to increase, accounting for 2% of the global total electricity consumption, and is expected to reach 5% by 2030. Energy-saving is a top priority. Huawei Smart PV solution plays an important role in energy generation. Up to now, the total solar power generated with Huawei Smart PV solution has reached 296.5 billion kWh. Huawei Smart PV solution integrates digital information technologies and PV technologies and enables 3 to 5% more yields, to realize our vision and enable solar energy to become the main energy source for the future. In the Ningxia province of China wherethe

world's largest 640 MWpagrivoltaic plant locates, Huawei Smart PV solution has helped to increase the vegetation coverage by 85% and to generatemore than 3.8 billion kWh of electricity. Recently, Huawei Smart PV solutionalso contributes to the successful grid-connection of the 2.2 GW PV plant in China’s Qinghai province, which is the world's largest single-site PV plant and also the world’s first ultra-high voltage power line that delivers 100% renewable energy over long distances. Huawei provides 1.6 GW inverters for this project, and is the largest inverter contributors for this project.

More than 800 million people — 11% of the world's population — still live without reliable electricity. Huawei continues to invest in power digitalization and enables more green energy generation and power saving with digital technologies.

Bharti Airtel to acquire 5.2 pc stake in Avaada MHBuldhana for Rs 4.55 cr Avaada MHBuldhana Private Limited is a newly-formed company and developing a captive generating solar power plant in Maharashtra which will become operational by March 2021. AEPL has developed a portfolio of over 1 gigawatt solar and wind projects across the country and the first independent power producer to cross 1 GW installed capacity milestone in India, according to a regulatory filing by Bharti Airtel.

harti Airtel said it will acquire 5.2 per cent stake in solar power company Avaada MHBuldhana for Rs 4.55 crore in an all-cash deal. Avaada MHBuldhana Private Limited is a newly-formed company and developing a captive generating solar power plant in Maharashtra which will become operational by March 2021.

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It is a subsidiary of Avaada Energy Private Limited (AEPL). AEPL has developed a portfolio of over 1 gigawatt solar and wind projects across the country and the first independent power producer to cross 1 GW installed capacity milestone in India, according to a regulatory filing by Bharti Airtel. “The company has entered into an agreement on November 19 for acquisition of equity shares in Avaada MHBuldhana Private Limited a special purpose vehicle formed for the purpose of owning and operating the captive power plant, in terms of the regulatory requirement for captive power consumption under electricity laws,” it added. The transaction is expected to close by March 31, 2021.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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New energy storage player: Jinko Solar releases batteries for both resi and large-scale markets

JinkoSolar released a suite of new products under the “Eagle” name this week during the virtual Solar Power International tradeshow. Both highpower solar panels and energy storage systems are on display for the first time by the world’s largest solar panel manufacturer.

New panels include: Eagle 60HM G2: 330-W half-cell mono PERC module. Eagle 72HM G2: 410-W half-cell mono PERC module. Eagle 72HM G3: 405-W bifacial half-cell mono PERC module. Eagle 66TR G4: 390-W tiling-ribbon mono module (using larger M10 wafers). Eagle 78TR G4b: 475-W tiling-ribbon bifacial mono module (using larger M10 wafers). This is the first time Jinko’s tiling-ribbon technology has been used in panels released to the U.S. market. The company has similar modules under the “Tiger” name in China.

Jinko’s Tiling Ribbon (TR) technology is different from shingled modules. There is some overlap of cells that is facilitated by the tiling ribbon, explained Vikash Venkataramana, director of technical service and product management for JinkoSolar to Solar Power World earlier this year. “The ribbon is designed so that it can be positioned between the overlapping cells to eliminate any direct contact between the overlapping cells, removing any concern of mechanical stress. Special encapsulants are also used in the module to reduce mechanical stress.”

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ost interestingly is the release of lithium batteries and energy storage systems by the predominantly solar panel-focused company. The Eagle RS1 is a 8-kW/19.2-kWh AC-coupled energy storage system. It is stackable up to 28.8 kWh and 38.4 kWh. Its lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) technology is popular among the residential market. The Eagle RS1 has a 6,000-cycle-life and is outdoor-rated. The residential system is available for orders beginning in December 2020. Jinko has partnered with Enact on a residential monitoring and software program. The Eagle CS turnkey utility and C&I AC-coupled energy storage system comes in various energy ratings based on charge/discharge duration — from one half-hour to four hours. Eagle CS provides flexible power from 500 kW to 6 MW and has an energy density up to 5.1 MWh per 40-ft container. Eagle CS can perform ancillary grid services, load shifting, energy arbitrage and grid management. This large-scale energy storage system also uses LFP chemistry and has integrated BMS, HVAC and fire suppression system. JinkoSolar energy storage sales director Todd Nguyen said during an SPI webinar that the large-scale storage products will be available beginning in Q2 2021. Eagle CS will be available as a DC-coupled system by Q2 2022.

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Salient features of the Electricity Amendment bill 2020 The Ministry of Power (MoP), has proposed another electricity amendment bill on April 17, 2020. They had also enacted the Electricity Act of 2003 which deals with all the laws relating to electricity, and ever since that act they have also drafted two amendment bills in the years of 2014 and 2018 respectively but neither of them were passed in the Union Parliament and failed to become law.

he Electricity Act of 2003 had been the statutory criterion which has determined and administered the laws regarding the generation, distribution, and trading of the produced electricity and the use of it while considering the interests of the federal departments, producers and consumers of electricity, framing the rules regulations to govern the crucial element of the power sector.

Need for the Amendment To meet the challenges faced by the current society we live in, there was a dire need of amendments: 1. The original laws are obsolete and outdated and needs to be updated and relevant to the times we live in and the challenges there of. 2. There is an urgent need to focus and modify certain issues recurring over time and promoting additional mercantile impetus for the private parties to enter the market and merchandise the generation , distribution and transmission of electricity. 3. New measures to be implemented to alleviate financial crunches of the Discoms. 4. It was found to be necessary to encourage and foster legal and directorial ecosystem giving special and particular attention to renewable energy. There has been various Amendments made in this drafted bill. But we shall look into the key Amendments:

Policy Amendments:

1. Renewable Energy: The amendment in the bill recommends the Union to develop and notify regularly a National Renewable Energy Policy(NRE Policy) . Under the amendment proposed under section 86 (1) of the original Electricity Act the state commissions are under compulsion to follow the guidelines by the NRE and prescribe a minimum percentage for purchasing electricity from renewable and hydro power. Along with this comes a surety with a nominal percentage in the form of incentive for the producers. 2. Cross Border Trade: In 2(15(a)) of the Electricity Act a mention of Cross Border Trade has been added. This will cover import and export of electricity from India to other countries. Including the transactions for the electricity in transit between the countries . The Union has been given the power to impose the guidelines to allow and assess Cross Border Trade under section 49 of the Amended Bill. 3. Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority (ECEA) : The Electricity Act 2003 although deals with various provisions relating to sale and purchase of electricity, although there are no specific provisions for power purchase agreements or PPAs to adjudicate matters relating to enforceability of these PPAs. The amendment proposes to set up a ECEA whose sole purpose is having authority and original jurisdiction of a specific performances, obligations under this contract relating to sale, purchase or transmission of electricity under section 109 of the Amended Bill.

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ECEA must dispose of the cases within a period of 120 days from the date of receipt. It is mentioned in the draft that ECEA shall have similar power and jurisdiction as civil courts and appeals against orders of ECEA shall be heard by the Appellate Tribunal of Electricity (APTEL).

Functional Amendments: 1. Payment Security: A sturdy and secure system to meet the lack of monitoring system which has created a void of check and balance for any form of payment security. Actions of this mechanism had created a pile of unpaid dues. The amendment proposes a mechanism where in “no electricity shall be scheduled dispatched under such contract unless adequate security payment as agreed upon by the parties to the contract has been provided”. 2. Grant of Subsidy Mandated: The Appropriate Commission shall determine the charges of the tariff as for the consumers and the benefits of the subsidy shall be granted directly to the consumers under section 62(1(d))The tariffs shall be determined on the basis of commission without accounting for subsidies. 3. Time for Adoption of Tariff so Determined: Although there had been attempts to determine the tariff, but they had been sluggish in nature causing a concern of cost escalation. To address the setback the amendment prescribed a 60-day period to accept the tariffs. Failure of such will result in acceptance of the tariff. 4. Codification of Responsibility of National Load Dispatch Centre: There has been insertion of new provisions giving responsibility to the National Load Dispatch Centre ( NLD Centre)authorising them to carry out real-time operation. Monitoring the national grid and administration and superintendence of the interstate and inter regional dispatch and network and grid security and ideal organisation and transmission of the electricity under 26 of the Amended Bill. 5. Inclusion of Distribution Sub-licensee and Franchise: The amendment bill proposes a distribution licences me with the permission granted by the State Commission can authorise a ‘person’ as “distribution licensee”, distributing electricity on its behalf in a specific territory within its area of supply. Although the original distribution license shall stay with the licensee and held responsible for ensuring the quality under section 2(17(a)). 6. Easing the Process of Recruiting Members of Adjudicating Bodies: The existing act has provisions for multiple selection committee which are required to be constituted for appointment of: ● Members of the APTEL; ● Chairperson of Central Commission; and ● Members of State Commission. The bill proposes a single selection committee for the appointments under section 78. ● Members of APTEL; and ● Chairperson and members of the ECEA, Central Commission, State Commission, Joint Commission.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Electricity Derivatives An Introduction

CONCEPT PAPER

What are derivatives? A derivative is a product whose value is derived from the value of one or more basic variables, called bases (underlying asset, index or reference rate), in a contractual manner. The underlying asset can be equity, forex, commodity or any other asset. For example, a crude oil exploration company may wish to sell its production quantity of crude oil of a future date to eliminate the risk of a change in crude oil prices by that date. Such a transaction is an example of a derivative. The price of this derivative is driven by the spot price of crude oil which is the ‘underlying’. The emergence of the market for derivative products, most notably forwards, futures and options, can be traced back to the willingness of risk-averse value chain participants of an asset to guard themselves against uncertainties arising out of fluctuations in asset prices. Through the use of derivative products, it is possible to partially or fully eliminate price risks by locking–in asset prices. By locking-in asset prices, derivative products minimise the impact of fluctuations in asset prices on the profitability and cash flow situation of risk averse participants.

Economic functions imparted by a derivatives market The derivatives market performs a number of economic functions. A brief summary follows... First, the derivatives market helps to transfer risks from those who have them but may not like them to those who have an appetite for them. This is a very critical function. Second, derivatives, due to their inherent nature, are linked to the underlying cash markets. With the introduction of derivatives, the underlying market witnesses higher trading volumes because of participation by more players who would not otherwise participate for lack of an arrangement to transfer risk. Transfer of risk enables market participants to expand their volume of activity. Third, prices in an organised derivatives market reflect the collective perception of market participants about the future. Hence they provide important price signals which in the absence of derivatives markets are largely not available. There are many other direct and incidental benefits because of the existence of derivatives markets viz. it acts as a catalyst for new entrepreneurial activity. The derivatives have a history of attracting many bright, creative, welleducated people with an entrepreneurial attitude. They often energise others to create new businesses, new products and new employment opportunities, the benefits of which are immense.

Types of derivatives The most commonly used derivatives contracts are forwards, futures and options which we shall discuss in detail. Before that we take a brief look at various derivatives that have come to be used.

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Forwards: A forward contract is a customised contract between two entities, where settlement takes place on a specific date in the future at today’s pre-agreed price. Futures: A futures contract is an agreement between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a certain time in the future at a certain price. Futures contracts are special types of forward contracts in the sense that the former are standardised exchangetraded contracts. Options: Options are of two types – calls and puts. Calls give the buyer the right but not the obligation to buy a given quantity of the underlying asset, at a given price on or before a given future date. Puts give the buyer the right, but not the obligation to sell a given quantity of the underlying asset at a given price on or before a given date. Swaps: Swaps are private agreements between two parties to exchange cash flows in the future according to a prearranged formula. They can be regarded as portfolios of forward contracts. The two commonly used swaps are: Interest rate swaps: These entail swapping only the interest related cash flows between the parties in the same currency Currency Swaps: These entail swapping both principal and interest between the parties, with the cash flows in one direction being in a different currency than those in the opposite direction.

Participants in the market The following three broad categories of participants viz. hedgers, traders, and arbitrageurs trade in the derivatives market. 1. Hedgers face risk associated with the price of an asset. They use futures or options markets to reduce or eliminate this risk. They access the market based on their needs and requirements at specified times usually. 2. Traders wish to bet on movements in the price of an asset, they play the critical role of providing liquidity to the market by transferring risk between other market players, as they are usually present in the market at all times. 3. Arbitrageurs are in business to take advantage of a discrepancy between prices in two different markets. If, for example, they see the futures price of an asset getting out of line with the cash price, they will take offsetting positions in the two marketsto lock in a profit. They help to align derivatives markets to underlying cash markets and in turn are also liquidity providers.

Forwards, Futures and Options: In detail A forward contract is an agreement to buy or sell an asset on a specified date for a specified price. Details of the contract like delivery date, price and quantity are negotiated bilaterally by the parties to the contract. The salient features of forward contracts are: 1. They are bilateral contracts and hence exposed to counter– party risk.

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2. Each contract is custom designed, and hence is unique in terms of contract size, expiration date and the asset type and quality. 3. The contract price is generally not available in public domain. On the expiration date, the contract has to be settled by delivery of the asset. 4. If the party wishes to reverse the contract, it has to compulsorily go to the same counterparty, which often results in high prices being charged. 5. However, forwards are afflicted by several problems: o Lack of centralisation of trading, o Illiquidity, and o Counterparty risk In the first two of these, the basic problem is that of too much flexibility and generality. Counterparty risk arises from the possibility of default by any one party to the transaction. When one of the two sides to the transaction does not perform, the other suffers. Even when forward markets trade standardised contracts, and hence avoid the problem of illiquidity, still the counterparty credit risk remains a very serious issue. Futures: Futures markets were designed to solve the problems that exist in forward markets. A futures contract is an agreement between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a certain time in the future at a certain price. But unlike forward contracts, the futures contracts are standardised and exchange traded. To facilitate liquidity in the futures contracts, the exchange specifies certain standard features of the contract. It is a standardised contract with standard underlying instrument, a standard quantity and quality of the underlying instrument that can be delivered, (or which can be used for reference purposes in case of cash settlement settlement) and a standard timing of such settlement. A futures contract may be offset prior to maturity by entering into an equal and opposite transaction. A very large part of all outstanding futures transactions across asset classes are offset this way. Only a small percentage of futures transactions that are entered into are kept open till expiry of the futures contract. This is so mainly because of the time span/periods when hedgers are exposed to price risks for which they use futures to hedge. This period of price risk and exposure shall not necessarily merge the calendar of futures expiries and hence hedgers offset their futures positions based on this factor.

The standardised items in a futures contract are: Quantity of the underlying Quality of the underlying The date and the month of delivery (or expiry in case of cash settlement) The units of price quotation and minimum price change Location and such allied details of settlement Options: Options are fundamentally different from forward and futures contracts. An option gives the holder of the option the right but not the obligation to either buy or sell an underlying asset. The holder does not compulsorily have to exercise this right. It is up to the holder of the option to decide to exercise the right or not. In contrast, in a forward or futures contract, the two parties have committed themselves and are hence obliged by contract to either buy or sell an underlying asset.

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Buyer of an option: The buyer of an option is the one who by paying the option premium and hence buys the right but not the obligation to exercise his option on the seller/writer. Writer of an option: The writer of an option is the one who receives the option premium and is thereby obliged to sell/ buy the asset if the buyer wishes to exercise his option. contract to either buy or sell an underlying asset.

There are two basic types of options, call options and put options. Call option: A call option gives the holder the right but not the obligation to buy an asset by a certain date for a certain price. Put option: A put option gives the holder the right but not the obligation to sell an asset by a certain date for a certain price. Distinction between Futures and options Options are different from futures in several interesting senses. At a practical level, the option buyer faces an interesting situation. He pays for the option at the time it is purchased. After this, he only has an upside. There is no possibility of the options position generating any further losses or cost to him (other than the funds already paid for the option). This characteristic makes options attractive to many occasional market participants, who cannot put in the time to closely monitor their futures positions. Hence, buying options can be termed akin to buying insurance against a particular event of price crossing a particular level. For instance, buying a put option on Nifty can be considered akin to buying insurance which reimburses the full extent to which Nifty drops below the strike price of the put option. The cost to be paid for this insurance is the option premium to be paid while purchasing the option. For that matter, buying a call option on electricity can be considered akin to buying insurance which reimburses the full extent to which prices of electricity rise above the strike price of the call option. The cost to be paid for this insurance is the option premium to be paid while purchasing the option.

A case scenario for use of electricity derivatives by Discoms in India A discom signs a power purchase agreement for delivery after 6 months. This agreement is mainly to have assured supply of electricity for the contracted period. In addition, the agreement also fixes the price of the contracted amount of power to be purchased. Using analysis of projections of demand, supply and other market variables, there is a view that the price at which the agreement has been signed seems to be on the higher side. But still the discom does not have too many choices. To ensure and secure supply of electricity, the discom has to sign advance purchase agreements notwithstanding the fact that analysis clearly concludes that the price at which power is available is quite high. However, if electricity futures are available on exchanges to trade, the discom can simply sell electricity futures on the exchange and reverse the positions when the supply of electricity actually happens. In such a scenario, the discom would have essentially realised the purchase price of electricity prevailing when the actual delivery of electricity happens and not that at which the advance purchase agreement has been entered into.

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featured The math of the above case scenario:

Month

Event

Remarks

July 2019

Discom enters into purchase agreement for supply in December 2019 @ 6.1 per unit

July 2019

Discom sells electricity futures at the prevailing rate at say 6.1 per unit

Futures Short Position Created

From July to December 2019

No other activity pertaining to this above purchase agreement is required

Short Position held is carried forward

December 2019

Supply starts and continues for the contracted quantity as per agreement

December 2019

Average prevailing price of electricity is say 4 per unit for the month of Dec 2019

December 2019

Existing short positions are existed @ average say 4 per unit

Mark to market profit of 2.1 per unit

End of transaction

Effective price of purchase hence is 4 per unit

(6.1 - 2.1) = 4 per unit

The downside of the above model of hedging using futures, contracted at 6.1 per unit would arise if the prevailing price of electricity in December 2019 has risen to say 6.5 per unit. In such a scenario, the effective price applicable to the discom would be 6.5 per unit and not 6.1 per unit at which the advance purchase agreement was signed in July 2019. This downside can be overcome with the use of options on electricity for hedging. If the discom purchases put options, then the final result would be that in December 2019, if the prevailing price of electricity is lower than the contracted price in the advance purchase agreement, say 4 per unit then the effective purchase price for the discom would be 4 per unit (plus the amount paid as option premium) But unlike as in the case of electricity futures, if put options are used, then if the prevailing price of electricity in December 2019 has risen to say 6.5 per unit, still the effective purchase price would stay the same as the price contracted in the advance purchase agreement i.e. 6.1 per unit; thus ensuring efficient price management for the Discom.

The cost for the above is the premium at which the put options have been purchased. Derivatives in Electricity i.e. Electricity Futures and Options can have various other kinds of economic usage as well for Discoms; which do not exist in the current market scenario. For instance, currently when a Discom anticipates peak load requirement based on its internal analysis and forecasts, enters into advance purchase agreements with power producers with definitive price and quantity commitments. These agreements are either irreversible or have prohibitive costs associated with a scenario where the Discom decides to not purchase the contracted amount of electricity in the purchase agreement. This is where derivatives would be very useful with regards to the Discom. One such scenario is arrival of monsoons earlier than forecast, leading to sharp drop in demand. If such advance purchases and price hedging is done by the Discom using Futures or Options, such advance purchases can easily be reversed on the Futures and Options. Hence the Discom can buy Futures and Call Options of electricity based on forecasted demand in advance. And when the period of actual delivery arrives, based on the actual demand scenario, (if the demand is less than the advance purchase positions in Electricity Futures and Options) the Discom can choose to simply reverse and close out the positions. This not only achieves flexibility in forecast and actual demand management for the Discom; it additionally also ensures efficient hedging and price risk management tool. On top of it, to achieve such flexibility, there is no additional cost of such a transaction in case of Options. However, in case of Futures, the price differential between purchase price of Futures and closing out (sale) price of Futures would be the cost impact to the Discom. In addition, it is a well-established fact that corporates that use price risk management tools backed by a proper hedging policy put in place; realise efficiency in cost and end up lowering their total cost in the process.

Punjab: Cancel power purchase agreements, says Bajwa in letter to CM Amarinder Singh Rajya Sabha member Partap Singh Bajwa wrote a letter to Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, demanding negotiation or cancellation of the power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed with private power plants.

He also suggested that the Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd (PSPCL) should initiate action against them for failing to maintain mandatory guideline on stocks of coal. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The unfair power purchase agreements signed with independent power producers (IPPs) were the brain-child of former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal. The three privately owned thermal power generation stations have become a financial albatross, that has caused huge losses to the exchequer of Punjab, while benefiting only a select few private companies. These agreements have been designed in a manner that ensures subsidisation of these power operators to the tune of Rs 65,000 crore as fixed charges for 25 years, paid for by the people of Punjab,â&#x20AC;? reads the letter by the Congress leader.

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Greenpeace India writes to NITI Aayog on post-COVID green recovery plans Environment think tank Greenpeace India sent to the NITI Aayog a plan to help build a climateproof, equal, sustainable and resilient India as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. In its recommendations to government’s policy think tank NITI Aayog, Greenpeace India stressed on the need to promote a decentralised model of renewable energy which will not only help to get universal energy access but it can also help mitigate climate crisis by replacing fossil fuelbased energy production. “The government needs to support rooftop solar and other forms of decentralized renewable energy solutions that reduce the demand for coal-based electricity. Moving our energy generation sector from fossil fuels to renewables will help to prevent premature deaths and vast savings in health costs. Provide support to clean technology businesses affected by the crisis to help them sustain and grow,” the environment think tank recommended.

Binu Jacob, Executive Director at Greenpeace India, said, “Green recovery would promote a sustainable and just society better than return-to-normal stimulus measures. NITI Aayog has advocated for sustainable development goals in the past, we are hopeful that the think tank body would seriously consider the green recommendations endorsed by citizens of the country.

he recommendations also called for promotion and increase in demand of electric vehicles, stating that as it will take some time to remove the fear of using public transport amongst people, who would prefer using their own vehicles, this is an opportunity to promote e-bikes and e-scooters. It also suggested developing safer public transport to rebuild trust among people by providing clear guidance for safety and implement sanitation measures like cleaning regimes; issuing PPEs to drivers and staff; mandating face coverings for passengers; and increasing trips to account for limiting the number of passengers per ride.

“These recommendations reflect collective hope and confidence that the government will consider these areas seriously to turn this crisis into an opportunity and set the direction firmly towards building a climate-proof, equal, sustainable and resilient India as we emerge from this pandemic,” Greenpeace said. Besides promoting public transport, it also called for active and carbon-neutral vehicles like cycles and suggested that public transport be made free for all. “Due to COVID-19, socially and economically marginalized people are the worst hit by economic slowdown and most of them can’t afford the expensive mode of transportation. Public transport is a vehicle for mobility justice and public welfare at large. Therefore, once COVID safety measures are fully in place, public transport should be made free for all. This will help us to discourage the use of personal automobiles,” the NGO said.

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The NGO said that besides the pandemic, India is also witnessing extreme weather events like cyclones, floods, droughts and earthquakes. “The pandemic has hit the world hard. We can understand that the government is trying to promote economic growth, better healthcare and repair the losses that occurred. At the same time, India is also witnessing extreme weather events in the form of cyclones, floods, droughts, earthquakes et al at an increasing rate in the past few years. “Even in the midst of the pandemic, the country experienced cyclone Amphan which has displaced thousands of people in West Bengal and Odisha. We have seen that while all get impacted by climate change and COVID-19 pandemic, the poor in the society are more vulnerable,” the Greenpeace said. It said the question to the society is how should the development trajectory shape post-COVID-19 and added that Greenpeace India along with 29,174 citizens across the country reimagined a future which is environmentally resilient, socially just and economically equitable. It said that it has been collating the recommendations since June 2020 as part of an initiative called “#TowardsBetter” in consultation with various stakeholders that include farmers, workers, urban dwellers and issue experts. The NGO suggested boosting Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) in the COVID-19 recovery plans, by helping farmers build structures and capacities to increase SOC content in agricultural fields by up to two per cent by the end of 2030. “This will also help achieve the 2030 commitment of restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land,” it said. Greenpeace also recommended incentivising protection and enhancement of biomass to stop crop residue burning. “Burning of crop residue and cattle dung for cooking and farm cleaning purposes have huge health and environmental consequences. To positively restrict these unhealthy practices, the government should proactively invest in creating infrastructures that help farmers in converting these biomass residues into nutrient-rich organic fertilisers. “The subsidies on biogas plants for cooking purposes should be increased upto 75 per cent for general farmers and 90 per cent for small and marginal farmers. This will significantly reduce the existing load on fossil fuels and the emission levels,” it said. Greenpeace India also expressed its desire to engage with the NITI Aayog as and when they require more research and development of the ideas mentioned in the green recommendations. Greenpeace looks up to policymakers to drive these recommendations into concrete policies, it said in a statement.

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EESL Signs MoU with DNRE Goa to implement the country’s first Convergence Project Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power and Department of New & Renewable Energy (DNRE), Goa, signed a memorandum of understanding to discuss rolling out of India’s first project under the newly formed Convergence Energy Services Limited (Convergence) in the State.

nergy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power and Department of New & Renewable Energy (DNRE), Goa, signed a memorandum of understanding to discuss rolling out of India’s first project under the newly formed Convergence Energy Services Limited (Convergence) in the State.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri R K Singh, Hon’ble Minister (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy, said, “The energy sector and the electricity sector in particular are transitioning in an unprecedented way. With this programme, Goa can avail 3 major benefits through reduced burden of subsidy, increased efficiency of products reducing power consumption and reduced burden on the environment. With this initiative, along with the Kusum Scheme, Goa is well on path of becoming a green state. I congratulate EESL for this innovative business model and hope that other states too come forward to adopt it.”

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Nilesh Cabral, Power Minister, Goa, said “Goa is the first state to adopt the concept of amortizing the cost of pumps and LEDs into a PPA. This approach saves us INR 2,574 crores to the State over a period of 25 years, while improving the health of DISCOMs and providing cleaner power at the same time. This project will provide clean day time electricity to farmers and energy efficient pump sets that would reduce the power consumption as well as T&D losses associated with transmitting power to agriculture and rural feeder networks.”

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The projects will accelerate the usage of renewable energy, especially for agricultural and rural power consumption in the State. The projects will also contribute in reducing peak energy demand through deployment of energy efficient pumping and lighting. Convergence will install solar projects in a first of its kind large scale programme where vacant/unused land provided by the Gram Panchayats/electricity board will be utilized. Plants of 500kW to 2MW in size will be installed near the substations and enable DISCOMs to supply power during the day time and reduce transmission losses.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Sanjiv Nandan Sahai, Secretary, Ministry of Power, said “We believe that now that solar power has become affordable, implementing projects such as these can become a powerful means to eventually solarize our villages. Decentralized models of power development are becoming more and more important, and approaches such as the one being taken hold great promise to allow India to achieve her development goals. “ Convergence builds upon the decentralised solar development experience in under-served rural communities in India, and over time, using battery energy storage, will deliver renewable energy solutions to power agricultural pumps, street lighting, domestic lighting and cooking appliances in villages. Convergence will also work to enable battery powered electric mobility and its infrastructure and design business models to increase the uptake of electric vehicles in India. To enable commercialization of these solutions at scale, Convergence will employ business models that utilize a blend of concessionary and commercial capital, carbon finance and grants as appropriate.

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Agrivoltaics Becoming Multi-Billion Dollar Industry, Reveals IDTechEx One day solar “power stations” as we know them will be banned. On land and lake, no more blinding of large areas with black solar panels, throttling life. Substituting vast industrial desolation for a natural paradise or prime agriculture ruins tourism and the planet.

t will become illegal or at least bad business because the new vertical photovoltaics boosts farming, obscures little and acts as a useful wind shield. Translucent or spaced photovoltaics on lakes and estuaries also lets things live again. Huge rooftop greenhouses in cities involve translucent solar glass providing power while boosting growth. Call the new synergy “agrivoltaics”. New IDTechEx reports have the detail – “Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts”, “Materials Opportunities in Emerging Photovoltaics 2020-2040” and “Vertical Farming 2020-2030”. Fraunhofer ISE Germany research leverages farming with photovoltaics. Next2Sun’s 4.1 MW agrivoltaics in Baden-Württemberg uses 11,000 vertical Jolywood n-type PERT solar panels over 15 hectares, each bifacial 380 W. PERT (Passivated Emitter Rear Totally Diffused) can be monofacial or bifacial, efficiency up to 25%. The 4,850 MWh/ year electricity will cost only 6 cents/ kWh. More such projects are lined up.

Next2Sun says “The two active sides face east and west. The areas between the rows of modules can continue to be used for agriculture and the resulting flower strips provide space for the endangered insect world and many species of birds.” Flexible solar such as copper indium gallium diselenide CIGS is a multi-billion dollar success on city building facades because no strengthening is needed. Harmlessly, farmers could use it across walls and buildings, selling the power.

Scientists from KU Leuven, Flanders installed optimally semitransparent solar panels above an orchard. “We want to know how we can harvest pears and electricity at the same time,” says Professor Bram Van de Poel of the Biosystems Department. “Agrivoltaics are indispensable in the search for more sustainable energy. We are developing a calculation tool to predict the optimal yield under solar panels. Agrivoltaics must find the right balance between a profitable pear harvest and extra electricity. Energy must be sustainable and agricultural land must be cherished. Temperature is now higher at night, lower during day – good news for pears, which have been severely affected by global warming in recent years.” Half of the surface of Belgium consists of agricultural land. Can it double as solar? Europe is allocating budgets for agrivoltaics. HyPErFarm is a 5.1 million euro project started in November. Marleen Gysen, energy expert at Innovation Support, nods: “Agricultural land is too scarce and too fertile to be used solely for solar panels. That is why the sector is very curious about the benefits of agrivoltaics. They can increase farmers’ income security and protect crops against frost or sunburn.” In the US, Soliculture makes greenhouses with smart glass optimizing both growth and electricity output. Just as some regions ban new buildings without solar, could new greenhouses without solar be forbidden?

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Floatavoltaics redesign There is a rush into ugly floating photovoltaics because cooling silicon increases efficiency and land area is limited. A 2018 World Bank report on floating solar on hydropower impounds and water reservoirs concluded is at least 400GW. With coastal and open-sea build-out, the market would be “enormous”, said DNV GL. However, San Francisco Bay shuns it because of the effect on marine life. Benign versions are needed. The largest project is 150MW in Anhui, China. Soon comes a 1GW plant in India and 2.9GW off South Korea. The largest floating solar array outside China is BayWa’s 27.4MW Netherlands project. Beauty, access and wildlife are not always a priority as the rush extends to ‘high wave’ floating PV with several projects being developed for open-sea sites weathering winds of up to 62 knots, waves over five meters. However, this must not add to cities killing the sea that is increasingly near to them with rising sea levels. They already do this with untreated sewerage, salt from desalination plants, chemicals from factories, leisure activities, marine vessels and farm runoff of toxins and fertilizer. Instead, they must farm the sea and maintain biodiversity while creating benign marine tourism and leisure activities. Plants and fish could be protected by spaced and vertical solar. Intelligently designed floatavoltaics with the new materials can even leverage aquaculture, not kill it.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Sungrow Adds 95 MWac of PV Installations to Its Kazakhstan Portfolio

Sungrow, the global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables, announced that 95 MWac of 1500V medium-voltage central inverter solutions were operational well in Total Eren’s two solar PV projects in Kazakhstan to fully support the Central Asian renewable ambition.

A Closer Look at the Landmark Plants The two solar projects, which are a 75 MWac (100 MWp) plant named “M-KAT” in the Zhambyl region and a 20 MWac (28 MWp) plant named “Nomad” in the Kyzylorda region respectively, are both owned by Total Eren, a leading French-based Independent Power Producer (IPP) from renewable energy sources (mainly solar and wind). Construction works were handled by the Greek company METKA EGN. M-KAT and Nomad entered into COD in December 2019. Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia with a large geographical area and has a markedly continental climate, experiencing hot summers with temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius and cold winters with temperatures as low as minus 50 degree Celsius. Because of the huge distance from oceans, both the highest and the lowest records are noticeable.

Sungrow’s 1500V turnkey solutions utilized here ideally tackle the difficulties. Integrated with the 1500V central inverter, the medium-voltage transformer, RMU (Ring Main Unit) and auxiliary devices in a 20-ft container, the solutions enable easy transportation, installation and O&M, lowering the system cost. Functioning without derating under extreme temperatures due to smart forced air-cooling technology and competitive containerized design guarantees premium yields for the solar parks. The solutions enable a high DC/AC ratio which can minimize the LCOE. Notably, as one of the key players of 1500V technology, Sungrow has over 18 GW of 1500V inverter solutions installed across the globe.

Pioneer in Central Asia with Future-Proof Offerings

Total Eren is committed to deliver competitive renewable energy for the benefit of the Kazakh people and to contribute to the diversification of the Kazakh energy market. We were pleased to work with Sungrow during the construction of our two first PV power plants in Kazakhstan, and we are now looking forward to our next achievements in the country,” commented Fabienne Demol, Executive VP and Global Head of Business Development of Total Eren.

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We were honored to be selected by such an outstanding renewable IPP as Total Eren to provide our inverter solutions to their two solar farms in Kazakhstan. I would like to personally thank them for their trust and support. Sungrow presents customers with optimal solutions that minimize LCOE and is poised to power more installations in this Central Asian country to cut down dependency of the fossil energy, said James Wu, Vice President of Sungrow. The Company made significant headway in the nation, having hundreds of solar inverter solutions installed and taking the first place in market share yet.

Kazakhstan Sees Huge Potentials in Solar Market Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy released recently that the country’s renewable energy generation doubled in the past three years, and the amount in 2020 is expected to surpass 3,000 GWh. It’s reported that the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) investments significantly helped jump-start the local renewable energy market. Adding to this opportunity is the International Energy Agency’s prediction that Kazakh energy demand will double by 2035.

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LONGi joined EV100 and EP100 Initiative to continue to Inject “Green Power” into Climate Action!

the grand occasion of the 3rd China International Import Expo (hereinafter referred to as “CIIE”) was still in full swing. At the UK Pavilion, LONGi’s founder and president Li Zhenguo announced ” Net Zero carbon Photovoltaic, created by LONGi ” keynote speech, and announced that LONGi officially joined the “EV100” and “EP100” initiatives by the Climate Group. This is another feat in continuing to promote climate action after LONGi joined the RE100 initiative.

educing emissions over the next decades will be crucial to achieving not just their own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) but also the global target of 2C set under the Paris Agreement We joined EV100 and are committed to laying appropriate charof 2015. LONGi will uphold the vision gers in all of our premises over the next decade to guide more of”Utilizing solar energy, Building a green than 50,000 employees around the world in converting their cars world “, by setting strategic goals, paying to EVs. Mr. Li Zhenguo said, “At the same time, we are anchoring close attention to carbon emissions in the EP100’s development goals and are committed to installthe production and operation process, while sharing energying Energy Management Systems in all of LONGi’s production saving, carbon emission reduction and new energy technology and operation sites, the goal is to commit to a ten-year effort to development experience to create a better living environment achieve a 35% increase in energy productivity by 2025.” Li Zhen- for mankind and inject “green power” into the sustainable guo also said “LONGi will continue to focus on global climate development of the world.

change and energy transformation, continuously reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions, and achieve economic benefits and environmental protection goals.

Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group, expressed her congratulations to LONGi via video: “We are delighted to see LONGi become the first Chinese business to join all three of our business campaigns – on clean energy, clean transport and energy efficiency. They are showcasing the next steps for ambitious businesses in China.”

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EV100 is a global initiative led by international non-profit the Climate Group, which brings together companies committed to making electric transport the new normal by 2030. Over half of all new vehicles on the road go into company fleets, so it’s crucial that businesses lead the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) through their investment decisions and influence on millions of staff and customers worldwide. EP100 is a global initiative by international non-profit the Climate Group, bringing together a growing group of energy-smart companies committed to doing more with less to improve their energy productivity. Members are driving tech innovation and reducing emissions while making substantial cost savings and improving competitiveness – inspiring others to follow their lead.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Vodafone commits to net zero carbon emissions by 2040 Vodafone committed to reducing the company’s total global carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2040 and confirmed that its 2030 carbon reduction targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative as in line with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.

y 2030, Vodafone will eliminate all carbon emissions from its own activities and from energy it purchases and uses (Scope 1 and 2). Vodafone also pledged that by 2030 it will halve carbon emissions from Scope 3 sources, including joint ventures, all supply chain purchases, the use of products it has sold and business travel. By 2040, Vodafone will have eliminated Scope 3 emissions completely – bringing forward by ten years Vodafone’s original 2050 ambition to reach ‘net zero’ across its full carbon footprint. Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read said: “Vodafone believes in leading by example, so today we have pledged to become fully ‘net zero’ by 2040 and the Science Based Targets initiative has confirmed that our 2030 carbon targets are in line with the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.

We are committed to reduce our carbon footprint through improved energy efficiency, renewable energy supply, reducing our network waste and new environmental criteria when we select suppliers. Vodafone will also enable our customers to reduce their environmental footprint through use of our services, including the Internet of Things.” Tom Delay, Chief Executive at the Carbon Trust, developers of ICT sector pathway and technical support to Vodafone’s target development, added: “The Carbon Trust is proud to have supported Vodafone in the creation of these ambitious targets aligned with the science and global ambitions required to keep global warming within 1.5°C. This strategy will put Vodafone on a clear path to a 1.5°C future and will be at the forefront of a sector taking a clear leadership role in reducing their emissions and enabling others to do so as well.”

Science-Based Targets The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a collaboration between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The SBTi defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting and independently assesses companies’ targets in line with the latest climate science. Vodafone is one of over 500 companies to have their greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets validated by the SBTi. Vodafone has joined several leaders in this area by setting ambitious reduction targets that limit the increase in global warming to 1.5°C, in line with the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement goal to limit rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

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Vodafone is one of the first major telecoms operators to develop science-based targets that follow the pathway recently developed for the information and communication technology sector through a collaboration between ITU, GeSI, the GSMA, and the Science Based Targets initiative. The pathway sets out specific emissions reduction trajectories in line with climate science for companies operating mobile networks, fixed networks and/or data centres. Vodafone also met the required ambition thresholds of the absolute contraction approach defined by the Science Based Targets initiative.

Building on Vodafone’s previous commitments to the planet Today’s announcement further supports Vodafone’s aim of building a digital society that enhances socio-economic progress, embraces everyone and does not come at the cost of the planet. In 2019, Vodafone committed to purchasing all electricity from renewable sources, halving its environmental footprint by 2025 and reusing, reselling or recycling 100% of its network waste, supporting the move towards a more circular economy. By no later than July 2021, Vodafone’s European network will be powered by 100% renewable electricity – creating a Green Gigabit Net for customers across 11 markets that will grow sustainably using only power from wind, solar or hydro sources. In July 2020, Vodafone also announced an ambitious new target to help business customers who use its services reduce their own carbon emissions by a cumulative total of 350 million tonnes globally over 10 years between 2020 and 2030. In September 2020, Vodafone became one of the first global companies to announce it would assess supplier commitments to the environment, diversity and inclusion when they tender for new work, with a supplier’s ‘purpose’ accounting for 20% of the evaluation criteria for a ‘Request For Quotation’ (RFQ). Vodafone’s updated RFQ process now examines whether suppliers have environmental policies to address carbon reduction, renewable energy, plastic reduction, circular economy and product lifecycle. In May 2019, Vodafone issued its first €750 million green bond to finance or refinance projects to help meet the company’s environmental objectives, subsequently reporting which projects were eligible under the use of proceeds and how they were selected.

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Jeff Bezos announces $791 mn in grants to 16 groups to fight climate change

Bezos announced on Instagram that the grants are part of his Bezos Earth Fund. Last year, while announcing The Climate Pledge, Amozon committed to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy by 2025 and be net-zero carbon by 2040. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced in an Instagram post that he will give $791 million in grants as part of his Bezos Earth Fund to 16 organizations that are working to protect the environment, CNN reported. “I’ve spent the past several months learning from a group of incredibly smart people who’ve made it their life’s work to fight climate change and its impact on communities around the world,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post. “…I’m inspired by what they’re doing, and excited to help them scale, we can all protect Earth’s future by taking bold action now,” he added.

ccording to CNN, the full list of grantees is a mix of big-name NGOs, labs, reforestation, and climate justice groups including The Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation, Dream Corps Green For All, Eden Reforestation Projects, Energy Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, The Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, NDN Collective, Rocky Mountain Institute, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Solutions Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, World Resources Institute and World Wildlife Fund. The news comes one year after Amazon announced “The Climate Pledge”, which is the company’s commitment to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy by 2025 and be net-zero carbon by 2040. Amazon has also purchased 100,000 electric delivery vehicles and invested USD 100 million into reforestation projects and “climate mitigation solutions”, CNN further reported.

Perovskite Solar Cells Set to Revolutionize Solar Sector, Finds Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, Emerging Innovations Driving Efficiency Enhancements in Perovskite Solar Cells , finds that technology advancements are transforming the solar industry. It is witnessing a shift from first- (silicon-based)to second- and third-generation solar technologies (amorphous silicon, perovskite, and bifacial). Perovskite-based(third-gen) solar cell technologies have gained attention due to their low manufacturing costs and higher operational output and efficiency limits compared to first- and second-generation solar cells. Aside from the emerging innovations, the study focuses on the key stakeholders, R&D, and growth opportunities within the solar industry.

Perovskite solar cells have demonstrated significant progress in recent years owing to the rapid increase in operational efficiency, from approximately 3% in 2006 to over 25% in 2020, said Abhigyan Tathagat, TechVision Senior Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Perovskites are materials demonstrating similar physical structures along with phenomenal operational specifications. Going forward, the materials can be easily synthesized, which make them a promising futuristic solar cell technology for producing efficient and low-cost photovoltaics.” Tathagat added: “Governments across the globe are exploring goals to achieve emissions reductions by 30% by 2030 as compared to 2016 levels. Hence, disruptive technological developments such as perovskite solar cells have brought in a change in terms of applicability and sustainability of solar cells.”

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he paradigm shift from first- and second-generation to third-generation solar technology presents immense growth opportunities. Market participants in the perovskite solar cell space should: Assimilate their technical expertise with smart designing, monitoring, and control companies for long-term growth, which will be fueled by the ongoing shift toward smart solar technologies to minimize human intervention within field operations. Interoperate with installers, system integrators, and utilities to facilitate open access to consumers requiring solar services and systems while enabling smooth operational and monetary transactions between the system integrators and consumers. Align technology and material developments with research and development (R&D) mandates, grid requirements, and consumer preferences. Build business and research consortiums, associations, or alliances to augment and establish R&D-aided collaborations that will commercially support technological developments. Emerging Innovations Driving Efficiency Enhancements in Perovskite Solar Cells is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Technical Insights research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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Technological and Market Leader: TBEA Sunoasis Wins Three Major Awards of 2020 China Good PV Brand

The 5th China PV Industrial Forum (CPIF) and 2020 China Good PV Brand Ceremony organized by omni media platform of International Energy Website (IN-EN.com) is held in Beijing on November 15. TBEA Sunoasis, relying on its quality innovative services, leading technical strength and powerful brand influence, wins three special honors including “Top 10 PV Inverter Suppliers 2020”, “PV Inverter Technology Breakthrough Award 2020” and “Excellent Brand Publicity Award 2020”.

n the area of solar inverter, TBEA Sunoasis embeds AI technology into inverter and helps solar plant to realize intelligent transformation while saving their costs and increasing their efficiency. TBEA Sunoasis’ 1,500V 228kW PV inverter, as the world’s first batch of series inverter with the power of above 200kW, is one of the industry’s high-level series inverters. Its advantages such as high power-capacity ratio, friendly grid connection, safety and reliability and intelligent operation & maintenance make it the best tool to reduce costs and improve efficiency for solar plants, and can effectively reduce the electricity costs of solar plant within its life cycle.

TBEA Sunoasis has been engaging in the PV area for 20 years during which it has accumulated advanced technical experiences; focusing on core products like PV inverter, TSVG, power router and power storage, it utilizes big data and artificial intelligence to develop the electronic cloud platform system, monitoring and data collection system, environment management system and other systems to provide clients with optimal LCOE solution, wind power generation, intelligent micro-grid, flexible DC transmission and other services. In the future, TBEA Sunoasis will continue sticking to the objective of maximizing client value, dedicate itself to shouldering the social responsibility of “contributing green energy and creating better life” by technical innovations and promote the development of PV market. “China Good PV Brand” award, one of the most influential brand awards of PV industry, is officially initiated in 2016 by the International Energy Website (IN-EN. com), the authoritative media of energy industry, and this year marks the 5th ceremony. “China Good PV Brand” award aims to praise excellent enterprises of the year in PV industry, showcase elite enterprises, improve corporate brand images, expand the impact of fine corporate brands, promote advanced innovative technology and pattern, facilitate orderly market competition and enhance the competitiveness and influence of the industry as a whole.

NOVEBER- 2020

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Novel transparent solar cells boost efficiency beyond limits The climate change crisis demands a shift from conventional fossil fuels to efficient sources of green energy. Solar power has shown immense potential as a futuristic and “clean” energy source.

echnologists are looking for ways to advance current solar cell technology. Now, scientists have come up with an innovative design for the development of a high power transparent solar cell. This innovation brings us closer to achieving our goal of a sustainable green future with off-grid living. Researchers are studying the concept of “personalized energy”, which is the production of energy. For example, solar cells could potentially be integrated into windows, vehicles, cell phone screens and other everyday products. But for this, it is important that solar panels are practical and transparent. To this end, scientists have recently developed “transparent photovoltaic” (TPV) devices, transparent versions of the traditional solar cell. Unlike conventional opaque and dark solar cells (which absorb visible light), POS devices use “invisible” light which is in the ultraviolet (UV) range. Conventional solar cells can be either “wet type” (solutionbased) or “dry type” (made up of metal oxide semiconductors). Among these, dry-type solar cells have a slight advantage over wet-type cells: they are more reliable, environmentally friendly and cost effective. In addition, metal oxides are well suited for using UV light. Despite all this, however, the potential of metal oxide TPVs has not been fully explored so far.

To this end, researchers at Incheon National University, Republic of Korea, proposed an innovative design of a metal oxide-based TPV device. They inserted an ultra-thin layer of silicon (Si) between two transparent metal oxide semiconductors with the aim of developing an efficient TPV device. These results were published in a study in Nano Energy, which was posted online ahead of the planned final publication in the December 2020 issue). Professor Joondong Kim, who led the study, explains, “Our goal was to design a transparent high-power solar cell, incorporating an ultra-thin amorphous Si film between zinc oxide and nickel oxide."

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This new conception consisting of the film Si had three major advantages. First, it allowed the use of longer wavelength light (as opposed to bare TPVs). Second, it resulted in efficient collection of photons. Third, it allowed faster transport of charged particles to the electrodes. Additionally, the design has the potential to generate electricity even in low light situations (eg, cloudy or rainy days). Scientists further confirmed the device’s power generation capability by using it to run a fan’s DC motor. Based on these results, the research team is optimistic that the real applicability of this new TPV design will soon be possible. As for potential applications, there are many, as Prof. Kim explains, “We hope to extend the use of our TPV design to all kinds of materials, from glass buildings to mobile devices like electric cars. , smartphones and sensors. Not only that, the team is excited to take their design to the next level, using innovative materials such as 2D semiconductors, metal oxide nanocrystals, and sulfurized semiconductors.

“Our research is essential for a sustainable green future, especially for connecting the clean energy system with zero or minimum carbon footprint,” concludes Professor Kim.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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The Hype and Hope of Sahara Desert Green Hydrogen

Past supergrid plans have failed. Can a transcontinental hydrogen pipeline connect the energy futures of Europe and Africa?

esert energy is back. As the European Union sets its sights on a green hydrogen boom as part of its plans to meet decarbonization pledges and rebuild economies ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, North Africa has emerged as a possible source for a significant chunk of Europe’s future hydrogen supply. A 2020 version of the European Commission’s hydrogen strategy referenced a proposal that the EU could meet some of its future supply from neighboring countries such as Ukraine, as well as the desert regions of North Africa, which offer both huge renewables potential and geographic proximity. The idea originated in a paper published in March by trade body Hydrogen Europe setting out the “2 x 40 GW green hydrogen initiative.” Under this concept, the EU by 2030 would have in place 40 gigawatts of domestic renewable hydrogen electrolyzer capacity and import a further 40 GW from electrolyzers in neighboring areas, among them the deserts of North Africa, via revamped versions of the natural-gas pipelines that already connect to Europe. If it sounds like a familiar idea, that’s because it isn’t entirely new. A little over a decade ago, a similar plan enjoyed its moment in the sun when a coalition of industrial corporations and finance institutions joined forces to push what was dubbed the Desertec concept. At one stage, RWE, Siemens and First Solar were all involved. The thinking behind Desertec was that up to 20 percent of Europe’s energy needs could be met with huge solar and wind arrays located in the Sahara, brought into the bloc via a trans-Mediterranean high-voltage power network. For a few years, Desertec generated hyperbolic headlines about the Sahara eventually providing clean power for the entire world. But the venture ultimately foundered amid criticism that it would have been an excessively costly boondoggle underpinned by outdated notions of Africa’s natural resources being up for grabs by the rest of the world. However, this idea now seems to have been granted a new lease of life, this time as the possible answer to Europe’s renewable hydrogen needs. Some of the thinking can be traced back to the legacy organization of the Desertec initiative, Dii, which addressed the proposal in a North Africa-Europe hydrogen “manifesto” document published last year. One of the authors of that manifesto also co-wrote Hydrogen Europe’s 2 x 40 GW initiative paper.

Underestimating Europe’s renewables potential Perhaps because of Desertec’s decidedly mixed legacy, the idea of a renewable hydrogen superhighway between Europe and Africa has garnered a lukewarm reception, attracting similar objections to those aimed at its predecessor, mainly around cost and practicality. According to Aurélie Beauvais, head of policy and deputy CEO of trade body SolarPower Europe, the idea of an EU-Africa hydrogen mega-project is something of a “chimera” based on what she says is a misconception that Europe lacks abundant renewable energy resources. “This is based on a bit of a prehistoric vision that you only have solar in the south and you only have wind in the north, whereas [in truth] resources are much better distributed,” said Beauvais, citing a study by SolarPower Europe and Finland’s LUT University published earlier in the year showing Europe’s renewables potential to be “immense.” “The EU is heavily underestimating their resources in renewable electricity,” she added. Preoccupation with the idea that Europe will not be able to meet its envisioned future demand for renewable hydrogen with domestic resources overlooks the potential for innovation in

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decentralized solutions, Beauvais argues. With these types of innovations, renewable hydrogen could be both produced and consumed locally “without the need for huge plants or huge pipes.” “We are at the beginning of a revolution, so it’s a moment where we need to encourage technology and innovation, and decentralized production of hydrogen is very interesting because it does not require the same amount of infrastructure,” she said.

Pipelines or pipe dreams? This echoes concerns voiced by others about the idea of Europe relying on renewable hydrogen produced overseas and the logistics of transporting the fuel to market. As Wood Mackenzie analyst Ben Gallagher has pointed out, hydrogen has low volumetric energy density compared to natural gas, which makes its transportation more of a challenge. “It would need to be highly pressurized, liquefied [or] turned into ammonia, or…some other carrier [would have to be used] for transportation,” Gallagher said. “Currently, hydrogen is compressed and put on trucks, but that’s for pretty small-scale distribution; it’s never been done on a large scale.” Martin Lambert, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, agreed that the cost of transporting hydrogen produced in North Africa or elsewhere through repurposed natural-gas pipelines would be substantial. “You need to do some quite deep engineering work to convert a gas pipeline system to hydrogen; hydrogen is quite different stuff to methane, so you can’t convert it easily,” he said. Lambert is broadly supportive of the idea of tapping the potential of regions such as the Sahara to either supply power directly to Europe or produce renewable hydrogen. But he questioned the feasibility of the timescales involved and achieving as much as 40 GW of capacity by 2030. Models of the development of the hydrogen market that Lambert and others have undertaken are more in line with the decentralized approach suggested by SolarPower Europe, building from a few local clusters initially developed around big industrial centers such as Teesside, Humberside or Merseyside in the U.K. or the Ruhr in Germany. “A few clusters could develop, and from that, you then start to integrate the link between them. To say as a first step you’re going to have massive hydrogen pipelines running across Europe sounds a bit premature,” he said.

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featured New tech and revived momentum bring renewed optimism Still, backers of the concept stand by its aims. Constantine Levoyannis, Hydrogen Europe’s head of policy, agrees that a decentralized approach should be the first focus of the development of a renewable hydrogen market in Europe. But he argues that the huge numbers involved in the energy and industrial “revolution” the European Commission is proposing in its hydrogen strategy will inevitably require an outward-looking approach to achieve. “We want European industry to invest in electrolyzers and help us achieve this objective. On the other hand, we’re cognizant that we don’t have enough space to be able to do more than 40 or 50 GW [within the EU]. So we’re going to need a strategy that engages external parties as well,” Levoyannis said. Levoyannis recognizes that some of the same criticisms lobbed at Desertec are now being made of the 2 x 40 GW initiative, but he emphasizes the extent to which factors such as technological advances, substantially greater political momentum and the dramatic decline in the costs of renewables have created a very different context from the one in which Desertec operated. “There will always be the naysayers, but I think the facts speak for themselves. It’s a completely different discussion that we’re having today than we were 10 years ago,” he said. On the question of how renewable hydrogen might be physically transported to market in Europe, Levoyannis acknowledged that significant engineering would indeed be required. But the cost of repurposing existing pipelines to carry hydrogen would still be cheaper than building new ones and more efficient than trying to bring renewable electricity from, say, North Africa into the EU in electron form, he said. “You can transport much more renewable energy via pipeline, as in molecular form, than via the grid,” he said. The Hydrogen Europe paper claims that transporting hydrogen by pipeline costs 10 to 20 times less than electricity transported by cables. The inclusion of the 2 x 40 GW initiative in the European Commission’s July strategy proposal does not mean that it is official EU policy. But Levoyannis said the fact it was included highlights the extent to which the idea is being taken seriously at the highest levels of the EC.

That view is bolstered by activity already underway at a legislative level to pave the way for the development of a hydrogen “backbone” in Europe to support the hydrogen economy. Others agree that the EU is right to look beyond its borders if it is serious about hydrogen playing a central role in achieving climate neutrality.

The plan can bring Africa into the hydrogen economy According to Nils Røkke, chairman of the European Energy Research Alliance, closer collaboration between the EU and Africa in areas such as energy would bring mutual benefits. Those could include enabling Europe to tap into its neighbor’s vast renewable energy resources and allowing African countries to enjoy greater domestic energy access as a benefit from that investment. “Africa would be in a much better situation and Europe would be in a much better situation if there was a cooperation between the development of renewable energies and to develop renewable fuels such as hydrogen,” Røkke said. “And there will be will be spillover benefits, I’m pretty sure about that; not doing it would be isolating Africa from taking part in the industrial development of these kinds of technologies.” It is far too early to predict whether these factors will be enough to lead to the realization of 40 GW of renewable hydrogen electrolyzers in North Africa piping fuel across the Mediterranean. What seems clear is that in official circles at least, there is a growing view that at least some of Europe’s future renewable hydrogen needs must be met from outside its own borders. Already, moves are afoot to mobilize industry to begin finding ways to put the European Commission’s plans into action, including the launch of a Clean Hydrogen Alliance to bring together key stakeholders. The EU is also gearing up on the diplomatic front, with commission efforts such as the Africa-Europe Green Energy Initiative exploring opportunities for clean hydrogen collaborations. As these ventures start to take shape and legislative changes begin laying the foundations for a future clean hydrogen market, a clearer picture should begin to emerge of whether the prospect of a hydrogen revolution substantially powered by the sun and wind of the Sahara is just a mirage or a solid vision of a greener future.

Bigger Is Not Always Better The 30th International Photovoltaic Science and Engineering Conference (PVSEC-30) & Global Photovoltaic Conference 2020 (GPVC 2020) were held on November 8 as a joint hybrid event, based out of Jeju, South Korea. PVSEC is one of the world’s top three academic conferences in the photovoltaic industry, along with EU PVSEC in Europe and IEEE PVSC in the USA. At the conference, Dennis She, SVP of LONGi Solar, shared insights into ultra-high-power modules.

ltra-high-power modules come with lower LCOE and BOS costs, aiming to deliver high power performance and long-term reliability. High-power modules based on larger size silicon wafers is one of the technology streams for many companies to improve the performance of their products. However, the lack of a common standard for silicon wafer size can result in an increase in manufacturing costs throughout the supply chain. It can also complicate a customer’s selection process, the installation of photovoltaic systems and the coordination of the industry’s upstream and downstream sectors. LONGi internal research suggests that the high working current of a module based on a 210mm cell creates high internal losses, resulting in a module efficiency lower than that of a module deploying M10 cells. Another limiting factor linked to module size is the door height of a standard 40’ High Cube shipping container, which limits the width of a module to about 1.13m. Glass supply is an additional challenge, given that the width of a 600W module is 1.3m, wider than standard glass production parameters.

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Optimal LCOE & Reliability of Hi-MO 5 Hi-MO 5 deploys gallium-doped M10 standard silicon wafers (182mm), incorporating 66C and 72C formats, in bifacial and monofacial application. Smart Soldering technology increases module efficiency by 0.3%. “For large scale PV power stations, increasing the power of PV modules by increasing the wafer area is, to a certain extent, beneficial to the reduction of BOS costs and LCOE. That said, the size of the module is not a question of bigger being better. It is necessary to consider in depth the boundary conditions of manufacturing costs, transportation, reliability and manual installation. Based on such considerations, 72C M10 (182mm cells) is the optimal module design for large scale PV power stations on flat terrain,” concluded Mr She.

NOVEMBER- 2020

featured

Bagalkot to house North Karnataka’s first electric vehicle manufacturing unit The sheer volume of two- and three-wheel automobiles on the roads of North Karnataka accounts for a considerable amount of air pollution in the districts. However, with the aim of considerably cutting down on carbon emissions and give a fillip to sustainable mobility, the state government has given its nod for an electric vehicle manufacturing unit in Bagalkot district, the first-of-its-kind in North Karnataka. The manufacturing unit will be set up across more than 140 acres, he said.

Principal secretary to the commerce and industries department in Karnataka Gaurav Gupta confirmed to TOI that a proposal submitted by Balan Engineering Pvt Ltd to set up the electric vehicle manufacturing unit in Bagalkot district had been approved by the government. “The unit will be set up in Achanur village in Bagalkot, and the company has also agreed to set up solar power plants and chemical units, which will help other companies invest in electric vehicles in the future. We want to encourage sustainable technologies in North Karnataka, which is growing as an industrial sector,” said Gupta.

Managing director of Karnataka Udyog Mitra HM Revanna Gowda said that BEPL would manufacture prototypes of the electric vehicles in Bengaluru. “The company will start with manufacture of three-wheel vehicles for transportation of garbage for urban local bodies. This will be followed by three-wheel cargo vehicles, passenger automobiles and bikes. Once production starts and these vehicles start plying on the roads, Vijayapura and Bagalkot districts will register a sharp drop in pollution levels,” Gowda added.

BEPL director N Balakrishnan, an electrical engineer, said that the company was a Bengaluru-based start-up engaged in the production of electric automobiles. “We have obtained licence from the state government to set up an electric vehicle manufacturing plant and an assembly unit in Bagalkot. Some of our models have been approved by the competent authorities, while other models are awaiting it. The Bagalkot plant will be a fully-integrated unit, and generate hundreds of jobs directly and indirectly. We zeroed in on Bagalkot as the site for the unit since it is close to PuneMumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. We will start construction of the unit in January, and production will hopefully commence in the latter half of 2021,” he said. ‘Addl incentives for manufacture of electric vehicles’ Electric vehicles are the future of the nation, since they will help us become self-reliant in the fuel sector. We are encouraging manufacturers of electric vehicles by offering them additional incentives. We have decided to house the first electric vehicle manufacturing unit Bagalkot.

Delhi: Electric Vehicle policy to be featured in dialogue series Delhi’s new Electric Vehicle (EV) policy is garnering attention internationally with the state government being invited to take part in a series of dialogues organised by The Climate Group in collaboration with the UN High-Level Climate Champions and the COP26 Presidency.

ccording to officials, the event, ‘Race to Zero Dialogues: Launching the global race to zero-emission mobility’, which will focus on climate change, will be held virtually from November 9-19. Delhi is among the four cities in the world to have been invited to share their experiences. The Delhi government will be represented by Jasmine Shah, Vice-Chairperson, Dialogue, and Development Commission, who is expected to explain how the Delhi government plans to lead the transition to zero-emission vehicles.

“It is because of the bold and ambitious vision of CM Arvind Kejriwal on pollution and specifically electric vehicles, that Delhi’s policy is being hailed as an example globally. We hope to collaborate, learn and inspire cities and regions across India and globally to adopt equally ambitious policies to reduce air pollution and take action on climate change,” said Shah.

NOVEBER- 2020

The policy, enacted in August 2020, aims to make Delhi the EV capital of India by inducing 35,000 electronic vehicle purchases in the next year and 5 lakh in the next five years.

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Floating solar

SunSource Energy Wins 4MW Floating Solar + 2MW Storage Project in Andaman & Nicobar This will be one of the flagship projects by SunSource Energy making it the first ever floating solar + storage project in India. This project demonstrates SunSource Energy’s overall strength in terms of the development, construction, and operation of solar projects.

SunSource Energy, a leading distributed solar energy company, has announced that it will develop a4 MWac grid connected floating solar PV power project, along with2 MW/1 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). Once commissioned, it will be one of the India’s largest floating + storage projects in Andaman which will in turn will reduce the existing reliance on diesel.

he project will be situated at the Reservoir of Kalpong river, Kalpong Hydroelectric Project (KHEP) Dam, Diglipur, North Andaman, a District of Andaman and Nicobar Islands which will power the island that will significantly power the entire region, thus increasing power reliability. In order to reduce the dependency on Diesel for electricity, which is getting a price hike every now and then, adapting to solar will be a huge boon which will lead to even higher energy cost savings and contribution to a sustainable future. SunSource Energy will sign aPPA (Power Purchase Agreement) for 25 years with Electricity Department, Andaman & Nicobar administration (A&NA) for this Floating Solar Power with BESS based on the terms, conditions and provisions of the RfS. This first ever floating solar+ storage project in India is expected to offset ~8112 tonnes of CO2 annually.

Kushagra Nandan, President and Co-Founder, SunSource Energy, said that “With renewable energy taking centre stage in all discussions pertaining to reduction of carbon footprint, SunSource Energy is totally committed towards supporting the government mission with its expertise in the solar segment.”

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On this occasion, Adarsh Das, CEO and Co-Founder, SunSource Energy, said that “The fact that renewable power will transition into becoming the world’s cleanest and most economical fuel is a foregone conclusion. SunSource Energy intends to play a leading role in this journey. This project win is yet another step in our nation’s climate change promise to the world as well as enabling our nation’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self Reliant India Program).” SunSource, an investee of the Neev Fund – a private equity firm backed by State Bank of India (SBI) and UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), recently won one a solar with storage project in Lakshadweep that will supply clean and stable solar power to the islands. SunSource’s customers include large commercial companies, manufacturing companies, India’s largest oil company, airports, leading education institutes, textile companies, and warehouses.

NOVEMBER- 2020

technology

SolarWindow First-Ever: Electricity-Generating Flexible Glass Using High-Speed Manufacturing Process

SolarWindow Technologies, Inc. (Symbol: WNDW), today announced that for the first time ever, the Company has successfully produced its electricitygenerating flexible glass using roll-to-roll processing, a high-speed method typical to commercial manufacturing of tinted window films, digital displays, printed electronics, and semiconductors.

s thin as a business card, flexible sheets of SolarWindowTM electricity-generating glass generate power from sunlight and indoor artificial light, and are under development to electrify windows and otherwise passive surfaces on commercial buildings, automotive, aerospace, marine and other products.

The world’s leading manufacturers use roll-to-roll production, an innovative process successfully demonstrated by the SolarWindow team today. Importantly, this roll-to-roll processing marks a significant advancement in our mission to enable commercial manufacturing in the United States and Asia, stated Mr. Jay S. Bhogal, Chairman and CEO, SolarWindow Technologies, Inc. Today’s news is especially timely with the Company’s recent addition of several strategic hires and expansion of U.S. operations to Asia through newly established SolarWindow offices in Seoul, South Korea. The region is home to some of the world’s most advanced-technology manufacturers of next-generation electronics, building materials, electric vehicles, and commercial transportation systems — a natural fit with the Company’s proprietary LiquidElectricity™ coatings for films, glass, and plastics, using high speed roll-to-roll processing. The SolarWindow breakthrough announced today was made possible when multiple layers of the Company’s LiquidElectricity™ coatings were first applied onto ultra-thin flexible glass and then processed using precision lasers and a roll-to-roll system, in ongoing work underway at the U.S. Department of Energy’s, National Renewable Energy Labs in Golden, Colorado through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. Today’s announcement marks the first-ever such technical achievement to date on roll-toroll processing at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. These highly technical advances include significant enhancements to managing materials processing through the roll-to-roll system when creating electricity-generating glass, specifically better travel and conveyance, accurate registration, greater edge position control, and improved precision during the process.

NOVEBER- 2020

Importantly, these controls are key to increased power and performance of SolarWindow™ electricity-generating glass, as well as higher process efficiency, reduced operating costs and lower materials costs through less waste. Furthermore, these precision controls allowed the Company to successfully apply its proprietary laser process to today’s electricity-generating flexible glass. Initially developed by the Company for plastics, this laser patterning system promises improved power output of SolarWindow™ electricity-generating glass while concurrently increasing production efficiencies and reducing costs. Rather than creating laser patterns in its SolarWindow products using individual lasers, the Company’s laser system enables a single laser beam to be split into multiple focused beams which are simultaneously applied to flexible materials during roll-to-roll manufacturing. The development of the innovative SolarWindow laser beam patterning technology was performed in collaboration with NREL through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement from the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office with its Roll-to-Roll Advanced Materials Manufacturing Consortium, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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technology

Underwater robots can inspect floating solar farms, says local tech firm

An autonomous underwater robot used to inspect piers and vessels in the maritime sector may soon be diving into survey infrastructure at floating solar farms here.

hat is one area in which Ms Grace Chia, 29, and her team from maritime tech start-up BeeX believe their robots can be useful. BeeX, which was started in October 2018, won the fourth Smart Port Challenge organised by Port Innovation Ecosystem Reimagined @ BLOCK71, a collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and NUS Enterprise. A total of 187 pitches were received from start-ups around the world, from which 16 were selected for a six-week programme to further pursue their proposals. A final eight were selected to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges at Shaw Foundation Alumni House auditorium, and BeeX took the $10,000 cash prize.

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Ms Chia, who is the chief executive officer and co-founder, said that using autonomous robots for underwater operations can be cheaper than using traditional manned vehicles, and also more efficient and safer than using divers. Each robot can be programmed to do specific tasks, and are then left to complete the operation while being remotely monitored. BeeX is also looking at deploying the robots to help in the pursuit of cleaner energy here. Floating solar farms, like the one being built in Tengeh Reservoir, also require regular large-scale inspections, which the BeeX robots are suitable for, said Ms Chia. BeeX used to survey offshore oil and gas rigs, before pivoting towards operations closer to shore. Ms Chia said the current field is more cost sensitive, and the team had to relook its pricing strategy. “The difference between energy and maritime is that energy has very few customers and they’re all very big, but maritime has a lot of customers and they are very diverse,” she explained.

NOVEMBER- 2020

technology

GoodWe adds to its Utility portfolio with the official launch of HT Series 1500V 250kW PV String Inverter On 6 November the Indian solar industry witnessed GoodWe’s nationwide launch of the much anticipated HT Series. The Suzhoubased multinational is widely recognized as a global leader in Commercial & Industrial projects but has recently been adding to its Utility portfolio with larger and more powerful solutions. The event, held at the Pullman resort in New Delhi, was attended by prominent figures of the Indian solar industry and offered an insight into what other projects GoodWe might set its sight on.

roduct unveiling ceremony followed by detailed product presentation by Mr. Vivek Bhardwaj, Head of Sales – India, and a panel discussion featuring Mr. YBK Reddy (SECI), Mr. Bimal Jindal (SB Energy), Mr. Priyatosh Pathak (O2 Power), Mr. Gaurav Wadhwa (Renew Power), Mr. Syed Naqvi (ACME) and Mr. Sudhir Pathak (Hero Future Energies), and moderated by Mr. Vinay Rustagi (MD – Bridge to India) During the panel discussion, Mr. YBK Reddy, DGM – Solar (SECI) highlighted that demand for power is projected to reach 300GW in India and that the government has plans for hybrid tenders involving solar and other sources of renewable energy in its energy matrix. It is expected that more efficient component products and more reliable system solutions will be required to meet the demand. GoodWe seems to have anticipated many of these demands and the success of its launch of the 1500V String Inverter was seen by many as the moment of truth. The new HT series is said to provide the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and the industry’s most advanced safety features. The debate at the Pullman resort touched on various trending topics including the long-standing Central vs String inverter comparison and the challenges and opportunities presented by the “600+ wafer era”.

Mr. Vivek vows that HT Series 1500V 250kW PV inverter will be the safest and most intelligent inverter of the time with added safety features, 12 MPPT design, compatibility with latest technology and high power PV Modules with DC input current of 15A, and owned advanced monitoring system for 24Hrs remote monitoring and O&M functionality.

NOVEBER- 2020

String Inverters VS Central Inverters Mr. Gaurav Wadhwa stressed that string inverters are the better choice and present advantages related to BoS costs. Adding to the point, Mr. Sudhir Pathak mentioned how less space is now being used with increased block sizes in the latest PV project designs. Pathak also added that this the logical pathway for string inverters to follow; to be more compact and more intelligent than ever for utility projects.

The Era of High-Power PV Modules In terms of technological trends, the “Big” Era is now here with PV modules’ power moving from 500W to 600W+. At the HT product launch in New Delhi, Mr. Syed Naqvi agreed that increasing wafer sizes and number of wafers in PV modules represents a challenge for inverter manufacturers and increasing the current rating of PV module also requires inverter technology to go up one gear. In this aspect GoodWe also seems to have anticipated this trend, as reflected in its new product offering. The 1500V 250kW is said to be highly compatible with the latest high-power PV modules and bi-facial modules, allowing DC input currents of 15A. GoodWe received congratulatory wishes from industry leaders and GoodWe’s vision for 2021 already presents sizeable investment opportunities and will likely play a key role in the country’s additional installed capacity targets for the 2021-2025 period.

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solar inverters

Huawei Provides 110 MW of Solar Inverters to Krannich Solar M.E.P.E.

Huawei, a leading global ICT and digital power solutions provider, announced that by the end of 2020, it will supply110 MW of Huawei FusionSolar inverters to Krannich Solar’s subsidiary in Greece through SKE GmbH, its Value Added Partner and Service Partner for utility-scale, commercial and residential PV market in Southeastern Europe. 95 MW out of the total power has already been successfully delivered, while the rest is expected to be delivered by the end of the year.

Mr. Alexandros Athanassiou, CEO of Krannich Solar M.E.P.E. stated: “Krannich Solar, having 25 years of expertise and experience in supplying photovoltaic equipment globally, continues to achieve impressive results in the local photovoltaic market and gain customers’ trust based on the proven reliability of Huawei inverters combined with its wide product range offering that covers every PV plant size, topped by the comprehensive service and technical support offered by the local Huawei team in Greece. We will enhance our partnership with Huawei and SKE further to support the dynamic Greek solar market.”

rannich Solar, as a certified distributor of Huawei FusionSolar inverters, covers its Greek and Cypriot customers’ demand by maintaining a secure stock of equipment locally, in its central warehouse facilities in Kalochori, Thessaloniki, Greece. The main goal of Krannich Solar, SKE and Huawei is to further develop its installers’ network by continuously providing specialized training to enable them to design and realize the best applications of PV systems, even for the most demanding investors. Huawei and its innovative FusionSolar inverters, that harness more than 30 years of expertise in digital information technology, usher in the 2.0 era of AI + PV, redefining the industry with regards to power generation, O&M, grid connection, and safety.

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As stated by Mr. Sam Zheng, Huawei Regional Sales Director: “Huawei is redefining the PV industry internationally, with Artificial Intelligence technologies that meet future needs and contribute to the emergence of photovoltaics as a major energy source. In Greece, the company, is already dynamically positioned in the new era of the PV market, and is further strengthening its local presence to respond even more efficiently to the growing demand and requirements of the installed base with a variety of services including commissioning, service line technical support as well as immediate replacement of inverters from our warehouse in Greece. “

NOVEMBER- 2020

research & analysis

Solar and wind power costs in India will be comparable to coal in 2025: Moody’s Power generation from solar and wind projects will likely be cost-competitive relative to coal-based power in India in 2025-2030 period, according to Moody’s Investors Service, the global provider of credit rating, research and risk analysis.

he shift would occur if the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCoE) from solar and wind projects declines annually by a high single digit to mid-teen percentage between the first half of 2020 and 2025-30. “We expect the LCOE for new solar and onshore wind – both with battery storage – will be similar to the LCOE for new coal power in 2025, if the LCOE for the former declines at a CAGR of 8% – 16% from H1 2020 to 2025, and in 2030, if the LCOE range declines at a CAGR of 4% — 9% from H1 2020 to 2030,” The firm said in a report. The numbers are broadly similar for India and China. It added that the LCOE for those renewable sources with the same storage battery capacity as generating assets declined at a CAGR of 23% — 40% from H1 2018 to H1 2020 in China and India.

According to an analysis BloombergNEF, in India and China, the LCOE range for new PV (non-tracking) and onshore wind plants – both without battery storage – was already similar to or lower than the LCOE range for new coal power plants in the first half of 2020. Coal-based power generators operating with consistent regulated tariffs or Power Purchase Agreements in India are less exposed as compared to their counterparts in China and Korea because of the absence of consistent cost pass-throughs. The report said coal-fired power producers will likely bear the brunt of demand reductions in major countries including China, India, Japan, Korea and Indonesia because renewable energy will play an increasingly important role in power supply given governments’ clean energy policies and initiatives for green recovery.

India: LCOE for solar and wind without battery storage is similarly competitve

Source: BloombergNEF(BNEF)

NOVEBER- 2020

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reaserch & analysis

Corbella: Wind and solar now cheaper than natural gas

We all remember the disturbing stories coming out of Europe as little as two years ago called the heat or eat phenomenon. The push towards renewable energy contributed to large spikes in electricity costs that seniors and other people on low incomes in the U.K., in particular, were forced to choose between heating their homes or eating.

ven in Ontario, that province’s push under previous provincial governments to bring in more solar and wind power caused prices to rise so much that it helped lead to the defeat of Kathleen Wynne’s provincial Liberal government. According to a new report from the University of Calgary, however, that era of high-cost renewable energy is over. The School of Public Policy report on energy and environmental policy trends, Cheap Renewables Have Arrived, has found that solar and wind power prices have plunged so precipitously that they are now less expensive than efficient natural gas plants. Recent analysis shows that over the past 10 years, wind costs have fallen by 70 per cent and solar by 90 per cent.

Perhaps more significantly, the levelized cost of wind and solar — a measure which includes cost to construct and operate power plants — has now reached parity with the marginal cost of efficient natural gas plants, write co-authors Nick Schumacher, Victoria Goodday, Blake Shaffer and Jennifer Winter. “This suggests building new renewables is now cheaper than operating existing fossil power plants.” Shaffer, an energy economist and an assistant professor of economics, says theperceptionfor people who aren’t “electricity nerds” is that solar and wind power is a kind of “boutique power” — costly and niche. “For many people who are thinking back about five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, and hearing about the cost of solar and wind and, you know, runaway electricity prices in Ontario, we still have that in mind because that’s not long ago,” said Shaffer during an interview. “But it’s just changed so dramatically that’s no longer the case. Wind and solar is now cheaper than natural gas.” Now, before you get too excited and decide to cut off your natural gas supply, what hasn’t changed is the unreliability of both solar and wind. Basically, you only get wind power when the wind blows and solar power when the sun shines. But Shaffer says with more countries committing to net-zero emissions targets — including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that pledged Canada to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — the push will be on to find ways to store this “zero-emission power” to be used when demand is highest — primarily through batteries, which are currently costly and not so green. “Despite their low costs, wind and solar still have a long way to go before they are the dominant sources of energy,” states the report. “In 2018, renewables accounted for only 8.5 per cent of total global energy supply. Despite their small share of supply, renewable energy investment growth — 97 per cent of which is in wind and solar — is outpacing any other energy source at 7.6 per cent per year.”

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The report points out that even the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020 report — which tends to be highly conservative — declared: “Solar is the new king of electricity.” Shaffer says the rapid decline in the cost of solar panels was caused by the demand for them in Germany, California and other European countries and particularly now that China has taken the lead on production. “So, the renewables are now the cheapest in terms of producing electricity, but it still doesn’t give us the on-demand power we want. And so just looking at cost alone isn’t fair. We need to figure out how to turn that raw energy into on-demand power.” Shaffer notes that just recently TransAlta put in a large Tesla battery to store renewable energy and California and South Australia are doing the same. He anticipates that natural gas will continue to play an important role in electrification to fill in the valleys caused by the intermittent nature of solar and wind for some time to come. In October, Premier Jason Kenney announced a new strategy for Alberta’s massive 300-year supply of natural gas, including net-zero hydrogen exports, something that Shaffer believes will be in high demand in the world. EQ

NOVEMBER- 2020

research & analysis

India can push up renewable energy the most after COVID-19: IEA Renewable energy has been one sector that has been resilient amid economic shock generated due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic; and India is expected to gain handsomely. The country may contribute the most towards pushing the sector up in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new report, Renewables 2020 — Analysis and forecast to 2025.

he agency expects India to double its green energy capacity addition next year from 2020 levels. Many auctioned wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) projects are expected to become operational following delays due to COVID-19 and challenges in negotiating contracts and acquiring land. The report described the impact of COVID-19 on renewables in the electricity, heat and transport sectors. In a generally optimistic outlook (with some caveats), renewables’ resilience would be reinforced by the electricity sector; although global energy demand is set to decline 5 per cent, renewable electricity generation will grow 7 per cent (due to long-term contracts, priority access to the grid and continuous installation of new plants). Renewable capacity additions are on track for a record expansion of nearly 10 per cent in 2021, in part due to commissioning of delayed projects where construction and supply chains were disrupted. Key markets comprising the United States, India and some European countries have permitted deadlines to be extended for auctions and policies and robust pre-COVID-19 project pipeline ensure continued momentum. The report predicted a decline in global renewable capacity addition in 2022 due to the expiry of incentives and ensuing policy uncertainties. The expiry of production tax credits in the US and capital subsidies in China in the coming years may create uncertainty over the pace of future development. The report also highlighted the ongoing financial struggles of distribution utilities in India as an unresolved crisis.

India’s wind and solar market Wind capacity additions are expected to drop 60 per cent in 2020 as compared to 2019 (to 1 gigawatt). Nearly 0.3 GW wind capacity was added in the first half of 2020, with only one wind auction in the first eight months. This resulted in allocation of 40 per cent of the announced 2.5 GW capacity with average contract prices six per cent higher than in 2019. India’s solar PV capacity additions are forecast to be a third lower in 2020 than in 2019. Most annual construction activity in India takes place in the first half of the year before the monsoons. In the first half of 2020, new PV capacity installations were 70 per cent below average first-half growth of the previous three years due to COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions and construction slowdowns, as well as increased macro-economic risks. A rebound in PV deployment is expected for 2021 and 2022, with capacity additions exceeding the 2019 level as delayed and new projects become operational.

NOVEBER- 2020

Distribution utility woes The report highlighted the difficulties to India’s distribution utilities as COVID-19 deteriorated their financial viability. This financial instability leads to delayed payments to generators, lowering the profitability of existing projects and raising the level of risk perceived by potential developers and financial institutions. New renewable energy plants managed by utilities with low credit rating would likely face greater obstacles than those overseen by healthier utilities. Although policies to improve utilities’ financial health through Union government’s Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana were introduced in 2015, it has only been partially successful, and overdue payments to generators began increasing again in 2018. From January to June 2020, total overdue payments owed by utilities rose 28 per cent for all electricity generators and 10 per cent for renewable electricity plants. In May 2020, India announced an extensive loan programme to reduce overdue amounts owed to generators.

Innovations and way forward The report highlighted India’s innovations to pre-empt slowdown in the renewable energy sector — the switch from state-level to central reverse-bid auction is a move that provides more payment security and attracts more competition. Despite COVID-19 disruptions, India auctioned 8.2 GW of new PV capacity by the end of September 2020, exceeding that of the previous year and with consistent fall in tariffs. The Union government was also awarded a record 12 GW of PV capacity linked with three GW of PV module manufacturing. Other innovations such as wind-solar-storage hybrid auctions also make renewables more competitive. Removal of low-bid ceilings allows developers to fully reflect changes in the economic environment in their bids and secure sustainable revenues. The issues of transmission grid bottlenecks and land acquisition are being addressed through interventions of Green Energy Corridor and solar parks. India also urgently needs to help distribution utilities find a sustainable solution to their financial challenges to reduce off-taker risks. It needs to introduce comprehensive, transparent and investor-friendly rules for signing private power purchase agreements and open grid access that could spur higher investment independent from the auction system.

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rooftop solar

C&I Leader GoodWe will Power Gujarat with its Residential Inverter Solutions GoodWe strengthens its strategic cooperation with Evervolt Green Energy Pvt Ltd. to extend its reach in Gujarat. This Strategic cooperation will allow Evervolt to serve EPC companies in Gujarat and offer an improved service to customers.

vervolt has announced plans to open a warehouse in Gujarat region, improving speed and efficiency of service delivery. GoodWe offers XS Series (1-3 kW), DNS Series (3-6 kW) and SDT G2 Series (4-10 kW) inverters which are specially designed to serve Gujarat residential projects. GoodWe’s solutions are known for their advanced technological components, high performance and high efficiency. Evervolt has been working with GoodWe for five years and has been a trusted Distribution partner of GoodWe Inverters in India.

PV-ezRack® Launches First High-rise Solar Mounting Solution – The SolarBalcony PV-ezRack by Clenergy remains committed to developing innovative mounting systems and solutions for the global market. Thanks to multiple tests conducted in the past few months, our R&D team have launched the latest ‘Elevate series’ with its premier product, SolarBalcony mounting system. PV-ezRack® SolarBalcony as the name suggests, is a brand-new mounting structure for PV installations on high-rise balconies. See below the top 3 benefits of this newly released solar mounting solution.

Easy Installation for Battery Power All pre-assembled parts allow for fast, easy, and costefficient installation. Looking for a solar power for your offgrid battery. This mounting frame brings you one step closer to achieving this.

Durability and Excellent Corrosion Resistance Manufactured using 6005-T5 Aluminium alloy and 304 stainless steel in different anodized thicknesses, PV-ezRack® SolarBalcony features excellent corrosion resistance and durability. It applies to coastal regions and many other harsh environments, which are more susceptible to corrosion.

Excellent Compatibility PV-ezRack® SolarBalcony has an adjustment range, making it compatible with commonly sized balconies with metal railings. South Korea is the fourth-largest economy in Asia. It is also one of the top 10 GW-Scale solar markets in the world, ranked among the top 10 players since 2014. Based on the Renewable Energy 3020 Implementation Plan released by the South Korean government in 2017, renewables will account for 20% of its energy sources by 2030. By 2040, renewables are anticipated to occupy a larger proportion, reaching up to 35%. One of the factors affecting renewable energy deployments lies in the lack of available land in South Korea. Vincent Chan, Regional Manager of International Sales Department at Clenergy commented: “Compared with other mounting systems used for residential solar projects, PV-ezRack® SolarBalcony can be attached to the balconies of buildings directly, requiring very little space while generating sustainable energy for daily use.”

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Daniel Hong, CEO at Clenergy commented: “We are glad to be a part of South Korea’s encouraging programs for renewable energy projects and transition in its energy mix, contributing to the ambitious goals towards less dependence on coal and a reduced carbon footprint.” PV-ezRack® SolarBalcony has passed the stringent wind test, run by Korea Conformity Laboratories (hereinafter referred to as “KCL”). Tested from angles varying from 0° to 90°, with the wind speed of 50m/s, the product has been certified by KCL for use in Soutth Korea.

NOVEMBER- 2020

solar projects

Maharashtra: First solar powerenabled Textile Mill in Asia to come up in Parbhani district The Jai Bhawani women’s cooperative textile mill will be the first in Asia that will operate on solar power. Spread across thirty acres of land the mill will process cotton to cloth.

hairman of the textile mill Dr. Sampriya Rahul Patil said that the finest quality cotton will be procured from Parbhani itself. Parbhani is the leading cotton producing district in Maharashtra. Also, producing cotton is seen as a profitable investment because of which majority farmers grow the crop. Ginning, pressing, weaving and spinning of cotton will be done in the mill. Dr. Patil said, the cost of the project is 100 crore rupees and with the operationalization of the mill it will certainly give momentum to the industrial sector in the district.

BPE Increases Production Capacity at their Noida State Of The Art Manufacturing Facility

Best Power Equipment’s India Pvt. Ltd (BPE) that provides end-to-end strategic power solutions for most critical applications and having more than 2 decades of manufacturing experience announced that the company has increased the production capacity at their Noida factory.

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he company has recently commenced the production of UPS from 600 VA to 1.2 MVA, Smart rack solution &amp; Solar inverters due to robust sales from varied industries such as Healthcare, Data Centers, Banking etc. BPE also plans to achieve sustainable development goals and aims to promote innovation, creativity, and sustainable work to boost the country’s economy and stand in the global markets, reaching revenue growth target from 200 Crores to 500 Crores in the coming years. Recently BPE acquire new manufacturing facility of 15,000 Sq.Ft area in Noida, with its automated production lines &amp; high end processes which is equipped with advanced production facilities with the product range of 300 kVA three phase large UPS.

NOVEBER- 2020

Commenting on this, Amitansu Satpathy – MD, Best Power Equipments said, “This year, we have focused on increasing our production capabilities to various governments of India initiatives in PM Modis vision on Atmanirbhar Bharat. Today BPE has more the 1lakh installation base,300 plus channel partners, National distributor Ingram Micro and IRIS Computers

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solar projects

Solar panels will be laid in Omkareshwar reservoir Within two days of the sweeping bypoll victory, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan unveiled the blueprint for Atmanirbhar Madhya Pradesh by 2023 in Bhopal

MP is the first state to release a roadmap for selfreliance on the strategy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat, the CM said at an event attended by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. The focus is on transparent governance, farm welfare, job creation and booster shots for industry and healthcare. “Only Madhya Pradesh took this important initiative by organizing webinars with experts during the Corona pandemic. MP will be identified as the leading state for implementation of Atmanirbhar roadmap,” Kant said from New Delhi, adding: “When all the states were battling the pandemic, MP accomplished the important task of preparing this roadmap for economic development while making good arrangements to protect people from Coronavirus.” Chouhan said that a new structure will be created for public participation in the development and monitoring system by setting up Deendayal committees at village, janpad and district levels. Transparency in development works will be increased through technology. Farming will be made a profitable business by increasing production and productivity in a modern way, and Rs 10,000 will be given to farmers every year in the form of PM Samman Nidhi and Mukhya Mantri Samman Nidhi. The road map lays out clear milestones for development of infrastructure, health and education, economy and employment and good governance. This blueprint will guide ministers in preparing and implementing schemes of their departments, the CM said, adding that responsibility will be fixed at every level.

Shivraj: Making local vocal, women empowerment is aim

Prime Minister Modi is our inspiration. He had appealed to all states to support the Atmanirbhar Bharat mission, and urged to turn the Corona challenge into an opportunity. Atmanirbhar MP is essential for building Atmanirbhar Bharat,” Chouhan said. Recalling the challenge to help people overcome the Covid-induced economic crisis, the CM said: “We delivered funds to various sections of society through video conferences. Presenting the roadmap for MP under such circumstances was a special task, which we have fulfilled. Now, relentless efforts will be made to implement it. Private sector participation will be ensured,” he added. Economic activities will be promoted so that MP becomes the best state in the country, Chouhan asserted. “Making local vocal is the aim,” the CM said, adding that local products will be given emphasis, which will lead to women’s empowerment. “The business of women in rural areas will be made profitable by enhancing their skills. Efforts will be made to increase employment through cultural activities. Small traders should not face any difficulty, and if big traders are dishonest, they will not be spared,” the CM said.

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The focus will be on making agriculture a profitable business by building roads and infrastructure and ensure “utilization of every drop of water”, Chouhan said. The area under irrigation will be nearly doubled to 60 lakh hectares through a network of small water structures. “Farmers Producer Organizations (FPO) will be expanded in the form of a movement,” Chouhan said. The thrust will be on use of solar power. Solar panels will be laid in Omkareshwar reservoir. Taking inspiration from Swami Vivekananda, Chouhan said: “Today, it is necessary that all arise, awake and work till the goal is achieved. Because those who try never lose.” Chouhan handed over a copy of the roadmap to chief secretary Iqbal Singh Bains for its implementation. BJP state chief V D Sharma and several ministers, MLAs and MPs were present on the occasion. “NITI Aayog has helped in building the roadmap for the state. The department of public service management will coordinate in the implementation of the roadmap. All other departments will actively participate. Coordination will also be established through Deendayal Committees,” Chouhan said. Chouhan cautioned people that Coronavirus is still around and they should take precautions. “The mask itself is a vaccine,” he said.

NOVEMBER- 2020

international

Social Energy launches in Australia, Reducing Electricity Bills

Social Energy focuses on making solar panels and battery storage that delivers bigger savings for homeowners by offering game-changing technology, a competitive energy plan and market-leading solar feed-in tariff. Customers could save $2,182 off their energy bill in the first year alone, when purchasing a solar and battery system from an approved solar battery retailer, based on a bespoke quote. For further information see the IDTechEx report on Distributed Generation: Off-Grid Zero-Emission kW-MW 2020-2040.

he green energy  retailer  uses its artificial intelligence platform and cutting-edge virtual power plant technology to optimise solarconnected battery storage. It learns about a customer’s energy usage and makes informed decisions about how to store, manage and distribute solar energy. It generates revenue for its users by helping maintain and balancing the electricity grids across the country, reducing electricity bills by up to 100 per cent. Social Energy offers customers who purchase and install solar panels and a battery a feed-in tariff of 40c per kWh – a tariff not seen in Australia for almost a decade. This rate is more than four times the average in New South Wales (7.67c per kWh), South Australia (8.77c per kWh) or Queensland (7.01c per kWh), based upon data from EnergyMadeEasy. Customers will receive this market-leading export tariff for the first 300kWh they export each quarter – with a secondary standard feed-in tariff, which is still higher than the average in the region. Social Energy will pay its customers with a 9.6kWh or larger battery a minimum top up of $450 per year for the solar they don’t use. Each customer will receive Social Energy’s 40c./kWh feed-in tariff up to 1,200kWh (300kWh per quarter), after which they will receive an uncapped competitive feed-in tariff. Some customers may see their electricity costs drop as low as zero, with some lower-usage customers receiving a pay-out each quarter instead of a bill.

NOVEBER- 2020

The money-saving energy retailer also offers a competitive import tariff to ensure that if its customers need to buy electricity from the grid, it remains affordable. As a result, the energy retailer will flip the typical relationship with customers on its head, paying them more for selling their unused solar energy than what they’re charged for the energy they buy. For example, instead of a customer purchasing energy at an average of 23.25c./kWh in the NSW Ausgrid region and getting paid an average of 7.43c./kWh for what they sell back to the retailer, Social Energy will charge its customers just 21.56c./kWh in NSW Ausgrid, whilst paying them 40c./kWh for the first 300kWh each quarter. Social Energy is working in partnership with Duracell, a globally iconic consumer battery company, which means customers will have access to the impressive lithiumion Duracell Energy Bank 2 – scalable to different sizes to meet the needs of every home and suitable for outdoor installations. Social Energy also work with other leading solar battery suppliers, with batteries from SolaX and Duracell available at launch – and more batteries to follow in early 2021.

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international The cost involved in having solar panels, a battery and Social Energy installed at home is approximately $12,000 for a 6.6kWp tier 1 solar installation and an 11.6kWh SolaX battery system, connected with a Social Energy Hub. However, Social Energy’s unique offering, alongside the finance packages and government grants available, means many homeowners could receive a lower total bill than they’re paying right now for their energy alone. Some customers can reduce their electricity bills and go green, with $0 upfront, on a finance package to spread the cost of the total system price over a variety of terms up to 10 years, where the savings made from the system can contribute to and, in some cases, offset the monthly or annual cost of the loan. With additional government incentives for battery systems, some customers in South Australia can expect to have covered all initial costs in under four years, after which they will be benefitting from very low, zero or even negative energy bills.  For example, a customer in the South Australia region with an annual consumption of 6,000 kWh and generation of 8,000 kWh would have a payback time of under four years, based on a $12,000 cash purchase of a solar panel and battery system, with a $2,088 government grant. Having a battery installed at home can also offer a vital backup during power cuts, but by integrating with Social Energy’s gamechanging technology and market-leading tariffs this can be done in a way that makes financial sense. Social Energy announced its Australia launch in late 2019, with shareholder Shane Warne. The company arrives having taken the UK market by storm, establishing its position as the market leader over the past 18 months. The team at Social Energy aspire to drive true change in an industry that has historically been heavily to blame for climate change. Its customers can utilise the business to make the most of the green energy that they generate at home, lowering their environmental impact and being rewarded financially for doing so. Social Energy is available to those that are new to the world of solar panels and battery storage, and those that already have solar panels installed. Energy customers in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland can join Social Energy today by visiting the Social Energy website or calling its customer service team.

Chris Parratt, Managing Director Australia, Social Energy, said:   “We’re delighted to be rolling out Social Energy in Australia, as the financial and environmental impact for people here is huge. Our ground-breaking technology is a complete game changer for our users, making the combination of solar and battery storage offer better returns than solar on its own. It will support millions of homeowners in becoming more independent from the grid.  Having been involved in some major steps forward in the Australian energy market, I’m extremely excited to be pioneering the next big leap – with an energy plan that finally makes batteries a sensible investment for Australian families.”

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Mariusz Surmacz, General Manager Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, Duracell, said: “Partnering with Social Energy is a very exciting prospect for us. We appreciate their entrepreneurial spirit, their forward thinking, the quality of service and product they provide.” Social Energy is an energy retailer focused on making solar panels and battery storage deliver bigger savings for homeowners. Together with its customers, it can change energy for the better by creating market-leading green energy tariffs, all delivered through powerful yet easy to use apps. Social Energy is working in partnership with Duracell, Duracell is a globally operating iconic consumer battery company and a leading manufacturer of high-performance alkaline batteries as well as specialty cells and rechargeables. Social Energy customers will have access to the impressive lithium-ion Duracell Energy Bank 2, which is available for all types of home, scalable to different sizes to meet the need of every home and suitable for outdoor installations.  Duracell is a registered trademark of Duracell US Operations, Inc., used under license. All rights reserved. Social Energy also integrates with the SolaX Triple Power battery system, which is available to order now. Social Energy is taking on customers from November 2020.

Explanation of cost savings: The average energy customer in New South Wales could see a reduction in energy costs of over $2182 in their first year when having solar panels and a battery installed, if they pay for the equipment with cash and sign up to Social Energy’s electricity supply tariff. If the customer opts for a finance package (provided by a third party) to fund the upfront costs of purchasing the system they could see a reduction in costs of approximately $574.48 per year when taking into account finance repayments of $1607.52. The total cost of having solar panels and battery storage installed is approximately $12,000, with battery storage alone costing about $9000 for an 11.6kWh SolaX battery storage system, installed with a Social Energy Hub. Cash savings are based upon a customer in the Ausgrid region that consumes 6,000 kWh and generates 8,000 kWh per year. The savings compare a standard market offer (as taken from EnergyMadeEasy. gov.au) against the first-year net bill when using the Social Energy system and electricity supply tariff. Finance package savings are based upon a customer in the Ausgrid region that consumes 6,000 kWh and generated 8,000 kWh per year. The savings compare a standard market offer (as taken from EnergyMadeEasy.gov.au) against the first-year net bill when using the Social Energy system and electricity supply tariff. Added to this are the costs of a finance package of $12,860 borrowed for 8 years at an annual interest rate of 0% as per the terms of the Empowering Homes Program (EHP). Finance is provided by a third party. Payback in under four years is based upon a customer in the South Australia region with an annual consumption of 6,000 kWh and solar generation of 8,000 kWh. The payback is based on a cash purchase of a 6.6kWp tier 1 solar installation and 11.6kWh SolaX battery system costing a combined $12,000, a $2,088 Government grant and takes into account the value of self-consumption and FiT payments to cover the initial outlay. All data used for these calculations was obtained fromEnergyMadeEasy.gov.au External Link during week commencing 12th October 2020.

NOVEMBER- 2020

international

Turkey to rank 5th in Europe for renewable energy growth in 2020

Turkey will rank fifth in Europe this year for increasing its renewable power capacity, which is forecast to add 22.2 gigawatts (GW) by 2025 to reach 66.8 GW, according to an Anadolu Agency (AA) report which cited data from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Renewables 2020 report published this month.

he country’s total installed renewable energy capacity stood at 44.6 GW at the end of 2019. Out of this total, hydropower generated 28.5 GW, while wind produced 7.58 GW and solar 6 GW. Geothermal, bioenergy and other sources accounted for the remaining 2.52 GW. Turkey’s renewable energy capacity started to markedly increase after 2008 when the total installed renewable energy capacity was 14.3 GW. The IEA forecasts this trend will continue at a significant pace. By the end of this year, renewable power in Turkey is set to reach 47.3 GW with an increase of around 1.1 GW of hydropower and almost 900 megawatts (MW) of wind power.

IEA Senior Energy Analyst Heymi Bahar told AA that they observed that even during the hardest times of COVID-19, ”wind energy projects have not halted in Turkey.” He explained that Turkey’s Renewable Energy Support Scheme (YEKDEM), which was due to expire at the end of the year, spurred investors on to complete their projects by year-end.

NOVEBER- 2020

Projects under the scheme have a 10-year guarantee of purchase that varies depending on the type of renewable energy resource used. The Turkish government agreed to extend the YEKDEM period until June 31, 2021, taking the COVID-19 pandemic into account. According to Bahar, this extension created a new opportunity for investors who will now be able to run with their new projects up to June 31, ensuring that 1 GW of wind capacity will come online next year. He explained that although the future of the new renewable energy support scheme after June 31 remains uncertain, triggering potential project vacancies after this date, he expressed optimism over the growth in wind capacity up to 2025. “Turkey now has the cheapest wind prices in the world. Considering the low prices and the potential, the capacity will definitely continue to increase,” Bahar said. Total wind power is estimated to increase by 146% to 12.8 GW compared to the levels at the end of 2019. Solar energy to see fastest growth Bahar said that solar energy is also a lucrative resource for which massive projects are planned that forecast the fastest growth in Turkey by 2025, increasing by 280% to 16.8 GW. The mini Renewable Energy Resource Zones (YEKA) tenders support this growth. “This year is kind of a transition period for solar in Turkey, and we expect around 600 megawatts capacity to be online by the end of this year. However, with the YEKA tenders, the solar sector will be very dynamic, adding 1 GW next year,” Bahar said. Turkey will receive applications for mini YEKA solar tenders in January 2021 when the exact tender dates will be announced. Under these tenders, 1 GW of capacity will be generated in 36 regions across the country. “Solar has an open and long way to go in Turkey in the coming years with solar price tenders becoming quite competitive relative to Europe in the last few years,” he said. According to the IEA, together with the capacity growths in hydropower, bioenergy and geothermal, Turkey’s total installed capacity is due to increase by 50% by 2025 with 22.8 GW of additions. These additions will make Turkey the fifth-greatest capacity increasing country in Europe and 12th in the world. Bahar’s renewable energy expectations were supported by a Renewables 2020 report published this week, which said that renewables grew at a record pace this year globally despite COVID-19. It also forecasts that net additional renewable energy capacity will continue to increase even during the second wave of the pandemic. “Investors have a really large appetite for renewables,” Bahar said.

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international

Germany’s new draft renewable energy laws are ‘a slap in the face for prosumers’ A critical piece of the country’s energy transition (Energiewende) legislature, which originally aims to bring about an economically feasible low carbon society, the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (‘Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz’ – EEG) first introduced a feed-in tariff for renewable energy in the year 2000.

ith the 20-year remuneration period for those feed-in tariffs set to expire, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy introduced a new EEG in mid-September. The new laws should also enable Germany to comply with European Union policies such as the EU Clean Energy Package as well as the country’s obligations under the Paris Agreement on climate protection.

Valeska Gottke, head of communications and markets for the energy storage systems association BVES, told Energy-Storage.news in an interview that the draft law as it stands, is “bad news for the successful continuation of the Energiewende as it does not bring renewable ‘power to the people'”. “In their analyses of the Market Design Directive and the Renewable Energy Directive II, our BVES legal experts came to the conclusion that the current draft of the EEG does not implement EU law and, if the current draft of the EEG remains unchanged, Germany can be accused of violating EU treaties,” Gottke said. “The EU Clean Energy Package emphasises strengthening the role in the electricity system of the prosumer – citizens or businesses that generate and consume their own onsite renewable energy, to which battery storage is considered key.” Yet the new draft law does not even mention the EU Market Design Directive around protecting or supporting prosumers. The home energy storage market, which has been booming in Germany in the past couple of years “has already shown how essential it is for the goals of the Energiewende and may now be forced to fall short of its potential,” Gottke said. Gottke said that the draft is a testimony to the rigid, innovation-resistant view of the decisionmakers on the design of Germany’s energy system, which is long overdue in view of the necessary transformation of the energy system towards a climate-compatible system. “Decarbonisation, digitisation and decentralisation are indispensable guidelines on the road to energy system transformation – and with energy storage systems this is technically possible. The EU laws from the Clean Energy Package want to make this also legally possible.”

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Lack of regulatory definition remains among draft law shortcomings but new Innovation Tenders are a rare positive step BVES produced a list of 10 major criticisms of the EEG 2021 draft. Alongside that lack of support for prosumers which had been expected but had not been delivered, Gottke said that the long-awaited definition of the role of energy storage in the electricity system was again, expected but not forthcoming. Valeska Gottke wrote a Guest Blog for this site earlier in the year wherein BVES asked that energy storage be considered a vital “fourth pillar” of the modern energy system. “We were looking forward to that. And according to the current EEG 2021, this is not happening,” Gottke told Energy-storage.news. In common with many other parts of the world, distributed energy storage is a fairly new addition to the grid, outside of large-scale pumped hydro storage and regulators have been slow to recognise that batteries are neither generation, demand or electricity network infrastructure, but perhaps exist in their own category while performing various roles associated with those types of assets.

The draft law does not recognise that ability of energy storage systems to perform multiple applications, which could not only enable their full benefits to be realised, but also enable asset owners and operators to stack multiple revenue streams, giving their projects a much stronger business case. In a full interview to be published soon on Energy-Storage. news, Valeska Gottke of BVES said that not all of the provisions of the EEG 2021 are negative. One positive development is the continuation of the recent introduction of so-called ‘Innovation Tenders’: the first round of these has already happened, at the beginning of September. “While we generally view the draft of the EEG 2021 very critically, the continuation of the Innovation Tenders until 2028 contained therein is a positive approach,” Gottke said. Planning for those tenders actually began in 2017, so they have long been in the works, but this year’s first one, launched by the Federal Network Agency (‘Bundesnetzagentur’) allowed interested parties to present bids that included hybrid resources pairing renewable energy generation with energy storage. There were also separate tender tranches for solar and wind projects. However, solar-only projects were also eligible for the innovation tender, as long as bidders accepted conditions including that they would not be compensated for power produced in the event of negative power prices. The Bundesnetzagentur said at the end of September that it received 785MW of bids for projects combining generation with storage, mostly solar power with batteries, across 83 projects, versus 50 bids totalling 310MW of solar-only. “We need to make these innovation tenders really ‘innovative’. The design of the tenders needs some improvement, but it’s a first step in the right direction,” Valeska Gottke said.

NOVEMBER- 2020

Ev & ESS

SV Clean Energy Directs $14M to Electric Vehicle Charging This year, Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) has launched a series of programs to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). $8 million in funding from SVCE and $6 million from the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project (CALeVIP) partnership has been dedicated to planning, technical assistance, and installation of new EV charging stations across SVCE’s thirteen member communities.

s identified in SVCE’s EV Infrastructure Joint Action Plan published in 2019, key priorities include expanding EV charging at multi-unit residential developments (MUDs), small and medium businesses and fleet operations. Improving access to EV charging in these high-priority market segments will increase EV adoption in the community. The programs outlined in the plan will help guide installation of approximately 1,000 Level 2 chargers and 100 Direct Current Fast Chargers (DCFCs) at key locations near MUDs and small businesses throughout the community, along with supporting fleet electrification and regional stakeholder engagement.

Gas-powered vehicles are the largest source of harmful emissions in Silicon Valley, said Howard Miller, City of Saratoga Mayor and SVCE Board Chair, “and to properly aid in the transition to an affordable, clean all-electric lifestyle, we must support the development of accessible, effective charging where people live, work, shop and play.” To provide rebates for EV charger purchases and installation costs, SVCE has committed $6 million in funding combined with a $6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, totaling $12 million available in installation incentives. Through CALeVIP, starting Dec. 16, 2020, municipalities, businesses, commercial property owners, and multifamily residences in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties can apply for significant rebates to pay for equipment and installation costs for eligible EV chargers. SVCE is one of several agencies partnering on the CALeVIP Peninsula-Silicon Valley effort totaling over $55.2 million with the City of Palo Alto Utilities, Peninsula Clean Energy, San José Clean Energy and Silicon Valley Power. The additional $2 million in SVCE funds support the remaining suite of programs. Through FutureFit Assist: EV Charging, municipalities, businesses, commercial property owners, and multifamily residences can receive free assistance covering every step in the installation process, from site evaluation through bidding and permitting. SVCE will also aid in applying for available financial incentives. Applications for this program are currently open.

NOVEBER- 2020

Due to constraints in electrical capacity and parking configurations, installing EV charging at existing apartment buildings is often challenging. But as EV adoption continues to grow, it is critical that access to EV charging be available for the nearly 40% of residents in the SVCE’ territory living in apartment buildings. The Priority Zone DCFC Program provides financial incentives for DCFC deployment in or near areas with many apartments, so that fast charging can be conveniently accessed by apartment residents. The Silicon Valley Transportation Electrification Clearinghouse (SVTEC) and EV Regional Recognition programs connect SVCE with key regional stakeholders, including EV charging companies, large employers, and local governments. These programs are building an ecosystem to support rapid EV charger deployment by tackling tough barriers (like permitting or interconnection processes), sharing best practices, and connecting organizations with funding and technical support. To test novel solutions addressing critical EV infrastructure development barriers, SVCE is providing grant funding through its Innovation Onramp program. Current grant recipients are piloting new ways of deploying charging in apartment complexes and optimizing vehicle charging based on time-of-use rates. Governor Gavin Newsom’s September executive order, requiring that all new cars sold in California must be zero emissions by 2035, highlights the scale and urgency around this transition to EVs. The SVCE programs assist in the development of more EV charging infrastructure that is critically needed to help increase EV adoption.

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ev & ESS

eBikeGo to install 3,000 electric vehicle charging stations across five cities by February eBikeGo announced that it will be setting up 3,000 electric vehicle charging stations across five cities in India in the next three months. The electric mobility solutions provider plans to expand its EV charging network to 12,000-15,000 in the next one year.

hese charging stations will be IoTenabled and compatible with all electric two-wheelers. In the first phase, eBikeGo will install 3,000 charging stations in five cities â&#x20AC;&#x201C; New Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. The company will begin the installation of these stations from 1st December 2020. These will be installed in densely populated market places. The eBikeGo EV charging stations will be Internet-connected which means users will be able to access them simply by scanning a QR code to activate the charging. The user can keep an eye on how many units have been used using the smartphone app and so can vendors who install these stations at their establishment. After charging the vehicle, the user can pay using UPI, credit or debit cards, or cash. It will cost about 20-50 paise per km to charge the two-wheelers as well as three-wheelers, which would be five times cheaper than the cost of petrol. The charging stations will be manufactured on a contractual basis by an Indian company.

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This will not only help to boost the demand for electric vehicles and its ecosystem in the country but can also help to reduce the pollution and problems of battery swapping systems, Irfan Khan, Founder & CEO of eBikeGo, said. Now more people will go for electric vehicles when there are a lot more charging stations. We hope that state governments will also come forward with us to install more and more charging stations across the country to promote the eco-friendly way of commuting, he added.

NOVEMBER- 2020

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ev & ESS

General Motors’ electric vehicle plan just got bigger, bolder, and more expensive General Motors announced that it was dumping more money into its electrification plans and would also be accelerating its production to release more electric vehicles sooner than expected.

Speaking at a conference hosted by the British bank Barclays, GM CEO Mary Barra said the company would spend $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025 — up from the $20 billion it announced before the COVID-19 pandemic. Also by 2025, GM will launch 30 new electric vehicles around the world, more than two-thirds of which will be available in North America. The vehicles will span GM’s entire brand portfolio, including Cadillac, Buick, GMC, and Chevrolet, and will come in a range of prices.

reviously, the company said it would release 20 new EVs by 2023, though most of those were expected to launch in China, where demand for electric vehicles is much higher thanks to strict emissions rules. GM has unveiled two new EVs in the last few months: the Cadillac Lyriq SUV, expected to go into production in late 2022, and the GMC Hummer EV, slated for late 2021. But the auto giant has been criticized for bringing vehicles to market too late, while other automakers are racing to get their EVs to customers much sooner.

“Climate change is real, and we want to be part of the solution by putting everyone in an electric vehicle,” Barra said in a statement. “We are transitioning to an all-electric portfolio from a position of strength and we’re focused on growth. We can accelerate our EV plans because we are rapidly building a competitive advantage in batteries, software, vehicle integration, manufacturing and customer experience.”

Switch to electric vehicles could ‘end oil era’: analysis Emerging markets switching from petrol and diesel engines to electric vehicles (EVs) could save $250 billion annually and slash expected growth in global oil demand by as much as 70 percent, an industry analysis showed

NOVEBER- 2020

The news is meant to convince those investors on Wall Street who have been jittery about GM’s ability to catch up to Tesla, which has been the only automaker to successfully build an EV business over the last few years. Meanwhile, legacy automakers are stepping up their own EV plans, with Ford expecting to begin delivering its Mustang Mach-E SUV to customers by the end of the year and Volkswagen going into production on its electric ID 4 SUV early next year. GM also said it was bolstering its estimates about its scalable Ultium battery architecture thanks to “engineering advances.” The automaker now says it anticipates getting 450 miles of range out of its Ultium batteries on a full charge, up from the previous estimated range of 400 miles. The company said it was already working on the second-generation version of Ultium, which is projected to deliver “twice the energy density at less than half the cost of today’s chemistry.” GM said that this nextgen version of Ultium will cost “60 percent less” than batteries in use today. The company is prototype testing this next-generation battery technology, which is expected to be available mid-decade.

s more and more nations such as China and India look to grow their electic fleet, they are in turn reducing reliance on imported oil, with EVs forecasted to soon be cheaper to make and run than their fossil-fuel-fired cousins. An analysis of EV cost trends by industry watchdog Carbon Tracker found that a switch to EVs could save China — a world leader in the technology — $80 billion each year by 2030.

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ev & ess

Utilities, Tesla, Uber create US lobbying group for electric vehicle industry

A group of major U.S. utilities, Tesla, Uber and others said that they are launching a new group to lobby for national policies to boost electric vehicle sales.

he new Zero Emission Transportation Association wants to boost consumer electric vehicle incentives and encourage the retirement of gasoline-powered vehicles. It also advocates for tougher emissions and performance standards that will potentially enable full electrification by 2030. Under President Donald Trump, the White House rejected new tax credits for electric vehicles as it proposed to kill existing credits and made it easier to sell gas-guzzling vehicles. President-elect Joe Biden promises new tax incentives, including new rebates to buy EVs and a dramatic expansion of charging stations for electric vehicles – policy measures automakers have long advocated.

“We can own the electric vehicle market – building 550,000 charging stations – and creating over a million good jobs here at home – with the federal government investing more in clean energy research,” Biden said

Biden’s measures are in line with the group’s call for “strong federal charging infrastructure investments” and its goal to reach 100% electric vehicle sales by 2030. Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the group will support “Uber’s work to move 100% of rides to EVs in (the United States), Canadian and European cities by 2030 and go fully zero-emissions by 2040. It will take all of us working together to address the urgent crisis of climate change.” Automakers in the United States sold 326,000 EVs in 2019, accounting for about 2% of total U.S. auto sales. Tesla sold nearly 60% of the total. Other members include ConEdison, Duke Energy, PG&E along with EV charging companies like Chargepoint and EVgo, fledging automakers like Lordstown Motors, Rivian and Lucid Motors. Also part are Albemarle Corp, the world’s largest producer of lithium for electric vehicle batteries, Piedmont Lithium and Siemens. In September, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state plans to ban the sale of new gasoline powered passenger cars and trucks starting in 2035 in a dramatic move to shift to electric vehicles and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. California is the largest U.S. auto market, accounting for about 11% of all U.S. vehicle sales. Many states have adopted its green vehicle mandates.

Apple, ChargePoint team up on electric vehicle charging info Electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint said that it will team up with Apple Inc to integrate a wide range of EV charging information in Apple’s CarPlay infotainment system.

V drivers will get hands-free access to such information as the location and status of charging stations on ChargePoint’s mobile app on the CarPlay cockpit display screen. The app also will enable drivers to navigate to the nearest charging station and start a session, as well as ascertain speed of the charger, cost, availability and plug type.

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NOVEMBER- 2020

opinion

Renewable power is defying the Covid crisis with record growth this year and next Renewables will account for almost 90% of the increase in total power capacity worldwide in 2020 and will accelerate in 2021 to their fastest growth in the last six years, new IEA report says.

enewable power is growing robustly around the world this year, contrasting with the sharp declines triggered by the Covid-19 crisis in many other parts of the energy sector such as oil, gas and coal, according to a report from the International Energy Agency released. Driven by China and the United States, new additions of renewable power capacity worldwide will increase to a record level of almost 200 gigawatts this year, the IEA’s Renewables 2020 report forecasts. This rise – representing almost 90% of the total expansion in overall power capacity globally – is led by wind, hydropower and solar PV. Wind and solar additions are set to jump by 30% in both the United States and China as developers rush to take advantage of expiring incentives. Even stronger growth is to come. India and the European Union will be the driving forces behind a record expansion of global renewable capacity additions of nearly 10% next year – the fastest growth since 2015 – according to the report. This is the result of the commissioning of delayed projects where construction and supply chains were disrupted by the pandemic, and growth in markets where the pre-Covid project pipeline was robust. India is expected to be the largest contributor to the renewables upswing in 2021, with the country’s annual additions doubling from 2020.

Renewable power is defying the difficulties caused by the pandemic, showing robust growth while others fuels struggle, said Dr Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. “The resilience and positive prospects of the sector are clearly reflected by continued strong appetite from investors – and the future looks even brighter with new capacity additions on course to set fresh records this year and next.” Over the first 10 months of 2020, China, India and the European Union have driven auctioned renewable power capacity worldwide 15% higher than in the same period last year – a new record that shows expectations of strong demand for renewables over the medium and long term. At the same time, shares of publicly listed renewable equipment manufacturers and project developers have been outperforming most major stock market indices and the overall energy sector. By October, shares of solar companies worldwide had more than doubled in value from December 2019. However, policy makers still need to take steps to support the strong momentum behind renewables. In the IEA report’s main forecast, the expiry of incentives in key markets and the resulting uncertainties lead to a small decline in renewables capacity additions in 2022. But if countries address these policy uncertainties in time, the report estimates that global solar PV and wind additions could each increase by a further 25% in 2022.

NOVEBER- 2020

Critical factors influencing the pace of deployment will be policy decisions in key markets like China, and effective support for rooftop solar PV, which has been impacted by the crisis as households and businesses reprioritised investments. Under favourable policy conditions, solar PV annual additions could reach a record level of 150 gigawatts (GW) by 2022 – an increase of almost 40% in just three years. “Renewables are resilient to the Covid crisis but not to policy uncertainties,” said Dr Birol. “Governments can tackle these issues to help bring about a sustainable recovery and accelerate clean energy transitions. In the United States, for instance, if the proposed clean electricity policies of the next US administration are implemented, they could lead to a much more rapid deployment of solar PV and wind, contributing to a faster decarbonisation of the power sector.” The electricity generated by renewable technologies will increase by 7% globally in 2020, underpinned by the record new capacity additions, the report estimates. This growth comes despite a 5% annual drop in global energy demand, the largest since the Second World War. However, renewables outside the electricity sector are suffering from the impacts of the Covid crisis. Biofuels used in transport are set to experience their first annual decline in two decades, driven by the wider plunge in transport fuel demand this year as well as lower fossil fuel prices reducing the economic attractiveness of biofuels. Demand for bioenergy in industry is also falling as a result of the wider drop in economic activity. The net result of these declines and the growth of renewable power is an expected overall increase of 1% in global renewable energy demand in 2020. Renewable fuels for transport and industry are an area in particular need of potential policy support, as the sector has been severely hit by the demand shock caused by the crisis. More can and should be done, to support deployment and innovation in bioenergy to supply sustainable fuels for those sectors.

The report’s outlook for the next five years sees cost reductions and sustained policy support continuing to drive strong growth in renewable power technologies. Total wind and solar PV capacity is on course to surpass natural gas in 2023 and coal in 2024. Driven by rapid cost declines, annual offshore wind additions are set to surge, accounting for one-fifth of the total wind market in 2025. The growing capacity will take the amount of renewable electricity produced globally to new heights. “In 2025, renewables are set to become the largest source of electricity generation worldwide, ending coal’s five decades as the top power provider,” said Dr Birol. “By that time, renewables are expected to supply one-third of the world’s electricity – and their total capacity will be twice the size of the entire power capacity of China today.”

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energy storage

Software ‘crucial to the bankability of energy storage’

Within the Assessing the Battery Market: Opportunities and Challenges in 2021 panel at the Solar & Storage Finance USA event, organised by EnergyStorage.news’ publisher Solar Media and taking place online this week, industry experts explained the security software can provide when funding storage projects. Both front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter models are bankable, explained Alain Halimi, director of Project & Specialized Finance Americas for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and it comes down more to the specifics. “It’s more around the battery front, how it’s going to work and what kind of management team are backing the project, because battery projects are really complex when you when you think about it, because they are put in an electrical grid system which is not necessarily designed for them.” As batteries can play into a number of markets, including arbitrage and frequency regulation, the management of them is very important to their bankability. “Don’t be intimidated by software,” continued Halimi, “humans cannot necessarily manage all of these values, contract and requirement to charge discharge at the right time, and basically, also fulfil your requirements across device contracts.”

herefore, the use of software is an increasingly important, and something Halimi said as a lender they have spent a lot of time working to understand. “If the developer doesn’t have the right system, basically, the project is not bankable, you won’t be able to get into a bank debt, or even sometimes even equity.” Beyond talk of the bankability of a project, the panellists expressed a large amount of optimism as to the expansion of the storage market in the US. Texas, Florida and other south western states are set to be big markets going forwards, and are being seen as emerging markets in comparison to the established Californian and Hawaiian markets according to Halimi. While Dan Koehler, managing consultant and director of Project Management at Daymark Energy Advisors, suggested we’re ‘see a lot of good things happening in New York and Massachusetts’. As states increasingly launch their decarbonisation plans, they are committing to gigawatts of storage and outing into place procurement processes. This has already led to Virginia’s Governor Northam including US’ ‘largest energy storage target’ in the recent Clean Economy Act. Challenges in the north east have included expensive interconnection amongst others, but despite this, Koehler remains optimistic.

“I think given the scale of the policy support, the scale of the recognition that this is the direction the grid of the future, we’re pretty bullish that the individual hurdles will be overcome and folks will begin to figure out the combination of policies and market changes that will that will let these projects come to fruition, but not without a few bumps in the road for sure,” he said.

Construction of 250MWh liquid air ‘CRYOBattery’ has begun in UK

Using a solution the company has dubbed the ‘CRYOBattery’, the project is being developed by the company together with UK-based independent power station developer Carlton Power and is to enter into commercial operation in 2023, with the intention of generating revenue through the Capacity Market, grid balancing, arbitrage and ancillary services such as frequency response and voltage support.

t was first announced in 2019, with a £10 million (US$13.24 million) grant awarded to the project from the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEISS) earlier this year. The long-duration storage cools ambient air, turning it to liquid at -196°C. This liquid air is then stored at low pressure and later heated and expanded to drive a turbine and generate power. It is one of many types of long-duration storage being developed, although Highview claims it to be the only long-duration energy storage solution available that is locatable and can offer multiple gigawatt-hours of storage. The company also lauded the CRYOBattery’s “small footprint” as well as its ability to be scaled with no size limitations or geographic constraints. It is also to have the potential for carbon capture and storage, being the first project consented in Europe as being fully Carbon Capture Ready. Its proximity to its designated carbon storage field makes the site “one of the most economically viable sites in the UK for conversion to carbon capture and storage”, according to the company.

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In addition, the site is to have a visitor centre adjacent to the plant that will be open from Q1 2021. This is to allow visitors to see the progress of the site being built as well as to take virtual tours. The project “will help the UK to integrate renewable energy and stabilise the regional electrical grid to ensure future energy security during blackouts and other disruptions,” Highview CEO Javier Cavada said. Cavada appeared as a panellist at this year’s Energy Storage Digital Summit hosted by our publisher Solar Media in May. The Highview CEO spoke about the LAES technology and its potential to help transform energy sectors in the UK and internationally, appearing alongside a representative of flow battery provider Invinity Energy Systems and gravity energy storage startup Gravitricity. You can watch the full video of that session here. Highview Power has also inked deals to develop similarly-sized – or even larger – projects in the US, while the company recently also signed up to a partnership that could see it deploy systems in Chile and the wider Latin American region. Highview raised US$46 million in venture capital (VC) funding during the first half of this year, making it one of the top recipients of VC investments across the entire battery storage sector in that period.

NOVEMBER- 2020

energy storage

Long-duration energy storage milestones achieved by Lockheed, Eos and Form Energy Lockheed Martin said this week that the first test of its commercial redox flow battery is underway, while zinc battery company Eos Energy prepares to list on the stock market and aqueous air battery startup Form Energy has reportedly netted US$70 million of investment.

erospace and defence giant Lockheed Martin said this week that the “first commercial product variant” of its GridStar Flow longduration energy storage technology has been deployed for testing at the company’s chemistry lab facilities in Andover, Massachusetts. The GridStar Flow Serial Number One (S/N01) is a 500kW / 2.5MWh system that can discharge for up to five hours at full discharge power or up to 10 hours at half discharge power. The installation, which the company said will “determine the performance capabilities available to meet customers’ needs for customer-sited, long-duration, large-capacity energy storage systems,” follows the earlier installation of two pre-commercial units and takes learnings from the workings of those systems.

S/N01 demonstrates GridStar Flow’s unique chemistry and architecture in a commercial system for the first time. This installation marks an important milestone for the program and the initiation of a rigorous test campaign to demonstrate GridStar Flow’s performance, reliability and maintainability for use cases including the effective deployment of clean, renewable energy, programme director Tom Jarvi said. While the technology has been under wraps and expected to emerge for series production for some time, the coordination chemistry flow battery (CCFB) was expected to go for full launch during 2020, although the company has always said it would keep timelines flexible. Lockheed claims the battery uses earth-abundant materials and is designed for six hours or more of flexible discharge. As with other flow batteries, one of its perceived advantages over lithium-ion is that it can operate at 100% depth of discharge with minimal degradation over an expected lifetime of 20 years. In a 2019 interview with Energy-Storage.news, Lockheed Martin’s VP for business development Dan Norton said that testing and development programmes were going “swimmingly and as planned,” with Norton claiming that producing what could be considered an energy security asset was “the next logical progression” for Lockheed Martin. The company has been producing lithium-based GridStar units for some time and had already deployed more than 100 units in North America before the end of 2019.

NOVEBER- 2020

Meanwhile, Eos Energy Storage, which produces zinc aqueous hybrid cathode battery storage systems, prepares to list on the Nasdaq Capital market this week. A proposed merger with special purpose acquisition company B. Riley Principal Merger Corp has now been completed, forming Eos Energy Enterprises Inc, which is claimed to have a projected pro forma market capitalisation of around US$500 million. The intention to go public was announced by Eos in June. The combined entity prepares to list under the ticker symbols EOSE and EOSEW and trading will begin, 17 November. Eos Energy Storage CEO Joe Mastrangelo becomes the CEO of the combined company. The rest of the board is made up of Eos and B Riley executives alongside a handful of notable industry names including Dr Krishna Singh, founder of nuclear company Holtec International – with which Eos has had a manufacturing joint venture in place since 2019 called Hi-Power – former General Electric (GE) Global Growth Organisation CEO and president Alex Dimitrief and industry and tech veteran Audrey Zibelman, who was recently overseeing the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) but has resigned to join Google X. After several years of working to commercialise the technology, Eos has announced various deals and agreements for projects around the world, most recently including a >1GWh agreement with renewables developer Hecate Energy for projects in the US.

Form Energy nets US$70 million investment- report Form Energy, a battery startup claiming its aqueous air battery can store energy for as much as 150 hours, has closed Series C funding of more than US$70 million, according to a report by Reuters news agency. Reuters said that company CEO and co-founder Matteo Jaramillo had told the agency late last week of the funding, which brings total funds raised by Form Energy to more than US$120 million when added to other funding including US$40 million raised in a Series B round that closed in August 2019. Jaramillo has not said who the investors are in the Series C but apparently said details will be released in a couple of weeks’ time. In May, Energy-Storage.news reported that Minnesota electric utility Great River Energy will be piloting the use of a 1MW Form Energy battery system. Among Jaramillo’s co-founders is noted battery expert Yet Ming-Chiang and, in line with its aim of providing low-cost bulk storage, the company was previously known as Baseload Renewables.Form Energy has been working on two types of long-duration battery since 2017: an aqueous sulfur flow battery and the aqueous air device. According to Form, the latter “leverages some of the safest, cheapest, most abundant materials on the planet”.

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energy storage

To make India’s grids reliable energy storage needs to be able to play its part, panel hears

At a panel session on ‘Grid-level energy storage integration’, one of the other main takeaways was that the value of energy storage including batteries is not yet being recognised by energy markets and regulators in India. Allowing batteries to provide a number of services in order to maximise benefits as well as revenue streams would greatly improve the business case, participants including representatives of AES Corporation and Tata Power said.

n 12 October, millions of people were left without electricity and transport networks severely disrupted in Mumbai as 3508MW of load dropped off the network and 1375MW of generation tripped. A power line was down for maintenance and while another backup line was carrying extra capacity to accommodate, a further transmission line suffered a technical fault.

The cost of a grid failure, Rajendra Shrivastava, president and market business leader for AES India said, is paid for by “everybody”, not just the distribution company that manages the lines it starts from. The “pinch” is not felt by the distribution companies (discoms), which can “go back to their old ways” and hope the situation does not arise again. However, Shrivastava said, AES could build 400MWh to 500MWh of energy storage in Mumbai that would “take care of all the emergency requirements of the state and give them breathing time to rebuild the network,” he said, while also helping discoms with provision of spinning reserve, which energy storage can also do. The cost of an electrical grid breakdown is so high that if such projects were rate-based and also given market-based opportunities to participate in other services such as frequency response ancillary services and reactive power, they would achieve payback in five to 10 years, Shrivastava said. The Mumbai blackout was a “black swan” event, where two or three factors converged to make it happen, but it was also “bound to happen,” given that sufficient transmission line infrastructure investments have not taken place, the AES India president said. AES and Tata Power partnered up to work on a demonstration project in India, the country’s first grid-scale lithium-ion battery storage project, a 10MW system in Delhi, inaugurated in 2019. Tata Power’s president for transmission and distribution (T&D) Sanjay Banga, said that while that battery system is only currently used for demand side management (DSM) use cases and to demonstrate that the technology works, various studies as well as operational data from around India show that battery storage should have a role to play in providing grid stability.

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Batteries can fit in the evening peak, Tata Power’s Sanjay Banga said, while new tenders for renewables capacity are calling for round-the-clock energy solutions. While Banga believes the energy storage market in India will proceed to grow very quickly once an inflection point of cost versus economic benefit is reached, government and regulators still have a role to play in determining those benefits. AES’ Rajendra Shrivastava said that, as has been the case in other countries, the industry needs to advocate for energy storage to be considered an infrastructure asset class and said that AES Corporation and Tata Power are together approaching numerous government agencies to make this possible. While the capex may be initially high, allowing for energy storage investments to be rate-based on a long-term basis would be an innovative way to find a solution for many of the electrical grid’s problems. In Mumbai alone, a handful of cases where the grid needed to be islanded would allow for payback of that investment, he said.

NOVEMBER- 2020

Energy Storage

‘Largest’ battery storage facility to power luxury hotel resort in Saudi Arabia It will come as part of a huge 28,000km square development that will include 50 hotels when complete and will be powered solely by wind and solar energy (pictured). The complex, which is being developed by The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), will rely on the 1000MWh battery storage facility when its renewables aren’t generating power.

he firm said it will provide site-wide energy resilience and provide the power required at night when solar generation is not possible. It will also ensure supply in the case of outages when shutdowns occur due to potential faults or sandstorms affecting production. The blend of solar and wind power generation will also guarantee a reliable supply of energy to the destination and will save around half a million tons of CO2 emissions each year, the developers said. The battery storage facility is one part of a 25year public-private partnership (PPP) agreement that TRSDC recently awarded to an ACWA Power consortium to design, build, operate and transfer The Red Sea Project’s utilities infrastructure. Up to 650,000MWh of renewable energy is expected to be generated to supply the destination and other utility systems under the PPP agreement.

Saudi Arabia is one the world’s largest oil exporters, but has been focusing on renewable projects in recent years as it tries to lower its reliance on fossil fuels. “The size and scale of TRSDC’s battery storage facility puts this iconic regenerative tourism destination at the forefront of the global transition towards carbon neutrality. Wind and solar capacity are set to exceed coal and gas in less than five years, and we are keen to drive the pace of change,” said John Pagano, CEO of TRSDC. “We have always been committed to pushing the boundaries of what it means to be sustainable, and these efforts will play a significant role in the country’s ambition to become a greener nation. By powering the destination with 100 per cent clean and renewable energy, we will make this vision a reality,” he added.

NOVEBER- 2020

As well as the renewable energy, the site will see construction of three seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants to provide clean drinking water. Additionally, its sewage treatment plant will allow waste to be managed in a way that enhances the environment, by creating new wetland habitats and supplementing irrigation water for landscaping at the destination. The site is expected to welcome the first guests by end of 2022, when the international airport and first four hotels will open. The remaining 12 Phase One hotels will open in 2023, delivering a total of 3,000 rooms across five islands and two inland resorts. At the end of 2017, Tesla finished construction on a 100MW-output battery in Australia designed to maintain electricity flow in the country’s most wind-dependent state.

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electric vehicle

Ather Energy raises $35 million in funding round led by Sachin Bansal

Hero MotoCorp-backed electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy said it has raised funds to the tune of $35 million in a funding round led by Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s investment of $23 million. Besides Bansal, Hero MotoCorp has also invested $12 million as a part of the Series D round in the EV startup, according to a release. This round of investment will allow Ather Energy to accelerate its expansion plans and speed up the deliveries of its electric scooter, Ather 450X, the Bengaluru-based startup said.Ather Energy was one of the earliest start-up investments of Bansal, who chipped in as an angel investor with $0.5 million funds in the firm in 2014. With this round, Bansal’s total investment in the startup stands at $53 million, according to the release. The continued investment by the existing investors is a manifestation of confidence in the brand and the sector, it said.

Electric vehicles are here to stay and Ather Energy is playing a leading role in driving this change. Sachin has been part of our growth journey and this investment is a strong endorsement of the momentum we’ve built over these years, said Tarun Mehta, co-founder & CEO, Ather Energy.

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ith Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus escooter models in its product portfolio, the company has been aggressively expanding, with the opening of nine new markets – Pune, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kozhikode and Kolkata in the coming days, and the installation of Ather Grid in all the new cities, said the release. “Post the successful launch of our new product line, we are now looking forward to delivering the vehicles and seeing them across all cities. The pandemic has changed the landscape of personal transport and we hope that with high performance alternatives available people will choose electric vehicles for their daily commute,” Mehta added. To meet the projected demand in the coming years, the EV maker is moving to a new manufacturing facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, which will be designed to produce up to 1 million vehicles a year.

Ather Energy’s new product line and expansion plans across the country will make EVs a part of the Indian landscape. Having been a part of the team since 2014, it’s great to see their vision taking shape, said Bansal on the fresh round of his investment in the company. The EV maker also unveiled its collector’s edition vehicle Series 1, the only two wheeler with transparent panels in India, in September. The Series 1 vehicle has been designed for early owners of the vehicle with only a limited group eligible to purchase, as per the release.

NOVEMBER- 2020

74Â

NOVEBER- 2020

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