Indian utility NTPC to invite bids for dollar-based solar contracts

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  Indian State utility NTPC, will award tenders for between 500MW-1GW this month under dollar-based bidding. Flickr: Miran Rijavec

The Indian government is set to invite bids for dollar-based solar power contracts in order to encourage foreign investment in its ambitious solar programme, according to reports.

State-utility National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), will award tenders for between 500MW-1GW this month, Ministry of New and renewable Energy joint secretary Tarun Kapoor toldBloomberg in New Delhi.

The contracts will pay the rupee equivalent of the dollar tariff determined by the bidding. Meanwhile NTPC will also create a fund to manage the currency risk it takes on.

Kapoor told reporters that the dollar-linked tariffs could reduce developers' borrowing costs by around a third by dropping solar tariffs down by a similar fraction.

Jasmeet Khurana, senior consulting manager at analyst firm, Bridge to India, told PV Tech that tariff-based bidding is in the pipeline, which will be followed by viability gap funding. NTPC has to allocate 3,000MW of solar projects via this tariff-based bidding, of which around 1,420MW has already been allocated.

For the next 1,580MW, Khurana said dollar-based bidding is likely to make up part of that amount. He was not able to confirm a timeline for this bidding process.

He added such bidding “makes a lot of sense” from an international developer’s perspective, because another entity is able to take the currency risk away from the developer on top of the lower original costs of hedging when a public company or the government is involved.

Power minister Piyush Goyal had proposed the dollar tariff in a recent speech claiming it could encourage foreign investment and help “keep the cost of solar power very reasonable”.

India’s cabinet recently approved the country’s 100GW solar capacity target by 2022, as well as approving plans for the Solar Power Corporation of India (SECI), the main driver for the State’s National Solar Mission, to become a commercial entity and take on projects for other renewable energy technologies under the name Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI).

Khurana said that until now SECI has been facilitating project allocation, but needs to become a commercial entity and full solar developer so that the organisation does not “fade away” as the market matures. Responsibility for the national solar mission will is now split between SECI and NTPC.

Khurana said the transformation of SECI to its new role as RECI should not have an effect on the solar market.

Last week, Japanese telecoms provider-turned solar developer Softbank announced the first major foreign investment of US$20 billion in renewable energy in India, which would include all aspects of solar energy development, marking a significant “game changer” for India’s solar goals.

Tool Order: SEMCO wins post-ion implant anneal technology order on its DF6200 platform

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  PV equipment specialist SEMCO Group is to supply its latest LYTOX technology to an unidentified solar cell producer to carryout post-ion implantation damage annealing.

PV equipment specialist SEMCO Group is to supply its latest LYTOX technology to an unidentified solar cell producer to carryout post-ion implantation damage annealing.

SEMCO said that its latest design of its DF6200 high-throughput furnace platform equipped with the LYTOX reduced pressure post-implant activation and passivation technology also included its high throughput cassette to cassette wafer transfer automation system that enables the loading of 1,400 horizontal wafers per furnace tube for high-volume production, typically N-type monocrystalline and bifacial solar cells. 

Having recently teamed with process measurement specialist, Aurora Solar the order includes Aurora’s resistance measurement system and software. 

SEMCO noted that the customer had previously used its LYDOP-POCl3 systems, used for diffusion to realize the p-n junction and build-in voltage on solar cells.

N-type monocrystalline and bifacial solar cells are expected to gain increased acceptance by high-efficiency focused solar cell and module producers.

Thai Solar Energy kicks off 300MW plan with Japan projects

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  Solar development in Thailand. Image: Conergy.

Thai Solar Energy, a power producer which counts the Thai government among its clients, will build its first projects outside Thailand, beginning with three PV plants totalling 25MW in Japan.

The company said today that it plans to build 100MW of “overseas” plants by the end of 2016, and 300MW within three years of starting out. The first projects to be built should be completed “early next year”, Thai Solar Energy said.

Large-scale solar in Japan has seen something of a stumble in the past half-year or so, with grid connection issues and consumer electricity price pressure resulting in several reviews and reductions of the feed-in tariff (FiT) and a halt to the approval of new ‘megasolar’ projects. This means that with the exception of permission being granted for large PV plants to be built on specific types of underutilised sites, such as landfill, unusable agricultural land and evenabandoned golf courses, it is the backlog of already-approved PV projects that will sustain the downstream sector of the country’s PV market for some time.  

Despite this cooling of the market for new developments, analyst Hiroshi Matsukawa of Tokyo-based RTS PV has estimated that around 50GW of approved large-scale projects remain unbuilt. The rules have become a little more complicated since the last review of the FiT policy, however, with project developers being gently discouraged from selling on ownership rights to projects for profit and investors dissuaded from trying to buy into the upside of the more lucrative projects approved at the highest rates of the FiT, which was introduced in July 2012 and has subsequently been lowered by 10% or more each year. Developers with already approved projects are not allowed to change their module supplier from those registered with authorities when the initial application was submitted.

It is not immediately apparent which year’s FiT rate the Japanese solar farms Thai Solar Energy will build have been approved at, but the company said it expected to generate around THB300 million (US$8.9 million) in annual revenue once the 300MW of projects are completed.

The company did reveal that it will invest around THB2.5 billion (US$74 million) into the Japan projects, for which construction will begin later this year. Partnering with two Japanese companies, Eco Solar Japan and Prospec Holdings, Thai Solar Energy will build a 13MW plant in Aomori City, to the north of Honshu, Japan’s main island with the former. Meanwhile, the deal with Prospec will see two projects totalling 12MW built in Ibaraki City on the Kanto Plain about 120km from Tokyo. Partnering with local firms is considered essential to success in many of Japan’s major industries, with solar no exception.

Thai Solar Energy’s chairwoman and CEO, Dr Cathleen Maleenont, said that through a Singapore-based subsidiary, TSE Group International Pte Ltd, the company seeks to expand its footprint throughout Asia.

SunEdison to sell remaining shares in semiconductor business for US$193 million

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  The sale will be the final step in SunEdison's spin-off of the semiconductor arm. Image: SunEdison.

The final steps in SunEdison’s spin-off of its semiconductor business – through which the company was originally founded before its ascent to being the biggest renewable energy developer in the world – look set to go ahead. 

The sale could raise as much as US$290.8 million, after SunEdison Semiconductor announced that it will make 15.9 million shares of common stock currently held by shareholders available to the public. With 10.6 million of the shares, SunEdison Inc. could pocket US$193 million. Subsidiaries of Samsung own the remaining 5.3 million shares to be offered. The shares will be priced at US$18.25 per share, the company said. SunEdison Semiconductor, which makes polysilicon wafers, will not receive the proceeds of the sale.

The offering is expected to closed by 1 July, with Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman Sachs managing the sale as lead book-runners. In addition, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Barclays Capital will also act as book-runners. Details have been filed with the US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC).

The decision to get rid of the semiconductor arm of the business has been known about for some time. The August 2013 announcement caused a surge in share prices for SunEdison stock, PV Tech wrote, also reporting on the then-ongoing consolidation process of its manufacturing operations early last year.

Pattern Energy adds two PV projects to ROFO list

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  The two PV plants are both located in Japan and have already secured 20-year power purchase agreements. Image: Martin Abegglen/Flickr

Independent power company Pattern Energy has added two new PV plants — totaling 56MW — to its list of identified Right of First Offer (ROFO) projects from Pattern Energy Group LP.

The first project, Futtsu Solar, is a 42MW PV plant currently under construction in Chiba, Japan, that possesses a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Tokyo Electric Power Company. The second installation, Kanagi Solar, is a 14MW plant that is under construction in Shimane, Japan. Kanagi is locked in on a 20-year PPA with Chugoku Electric Power Company.

Along with these two projects, Pattern has also added four wind plants to its ROFO list, three of which will be located in Japan while one will be developed in Curry County, New Mexico. Pattern Development has now built up its project pipeline to 5,900MW.

Mike Garland, president and CEO of Pattern Energy, said: "Since the IPO we have expanded the ROFO list by 182%, offering investors detailed visibility into our growth plans.Between our operational facilities and our ROFO projects, we have also significantly expanded our reach, which now encompasses Chile, Japan, four provinces in Canada, Puerto Rico, and seven states across the United States.

"Included in the ROFO list is a large multi-phase project in New Mexico, which will deliver very attractively priced wind power directly into California. Our five new Japanese projects, which include two solar projects, demonstrate the progress that Pattern Development has made in its partnership with GPI in Japan.”

Garland continued: "Because of the great success of the relationship with Pattern Development, and given the dramatic expansion of its activities, we have agreed not to reintegrate the employees into Pattern Energy when the company hits the $2.5 billion market capitalization.”

Community solar ‘most significant’ growth market in US - GTM

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  The development of community solar is expected to gather pace in the US, becoming a 1.8GW market by 2020.

Community solar in the US is on course to become a 500MW annual market by 2020, making it the country’s most significant growth segment, a GTM Research report has claimed.

The study, ‘US Community Solar Outlook 2015-2020’, predicts a fivefold increase for the burgeoning market this year, followed by 59% compound annual growth thereafter.

Although it is currently only at a low base of 66MW countrywide, the levels of growth predicted by GTM will make it a half-gigawatt annual market by 2020, adding 1.8GW by that time.

The report identifies 24 states in the US with at least one community solar project online, and a further 20 states in the process or near enacting community solar legislation.

States with community solar legislation will be the key drivers of near-term growth in the segment, accounting for 80% of installations between now and 2015, GTM said. Over the next two years, four states – California, Colorado, Massachusetts and Minnesota – are expected to install the majority of community solar.

“Looking ahead to 2020 the community solar opportunity is poised to become more geographically diversified, as developers ramp up service offerings to utilities in states without community solar legislation in place and national rooftop solar companies enter the community solar scene,” said GTM Research's senior solar analyst Cory Honeyman.

The report identifies 29 developers that are actively working on community solar projects, with two companies – Clean Energy Collective and SunShare – jointly accounting for 32% of operating community solar capacity.

Earlier this month, leading US installer SolarCity signalled its first foray into community solar when it revealed plans to build a series of community solar gardens in Minnesota.

UK installed more than 2.5GW of solar in Q1 2015

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  UK installed almost as much solar in Q1 2015 as it did in all of 2014. Source: Lightsource.

The UK solar industry connected 2.53GW of new solar capacity to the grid in the first quarter of 2015, according to the latest figures obtained by Solar Intelligence.

The astonishing amount of new capacity completed in the first three months of the year almost eclipses what the UK industry managed to install in total in 2014 – itself a record-breaking year for UK PV deployment.

The data has been obtained from combining the latest data fields from the regulator Ofgem, new site accreditation registers and council planning databases with the extensive bank of in-house surveys and interviews carried out by PV Tech's publisher Solar Media since the start of 2015.

The 2.53GW of new capacity means that the UK now has 8.16GW of solar capacity as of 31 March 2015.

Figure: New analysis undertaken by the Solar Intelligence team confirms that the UK added 2.5GW in Q1 2015, taking cumulative solar PV deployed in the UK to 8.1GW at the end of March 2015. 94% of new solar PV capacity added in Q1 2015 was from renewable obligation-funded, ground-mount solar farms.

During the past few months the Solar Trade Association and UK Solar have been highlighting that the 8GW mark was indeed passed at the end of Q1 2015, in contrast to data from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that was putting solar PV deployment at just 6.5GW at the end of March.

Our Solar Intelligence team is currently undertaking new research to understand exactly what the time lag is for renewable obligation based projects getting counted on DECC’s monthly deployment figures, and an article will appear on this in the next few days once we have consulted with all relevant stakeholders in the UK. However, another good marker for the 2.53GW figure is that this appears to be within 10% of unofficial estimates that DECC has been using for their own internal modelling purposes.

According to Finlay Colville, head of market intelligence at Solar Media’s new Solar Intelligencegroup: “Given the strong correlation with the trade organisations’ figures, it would now appear that Solar Media’s coverage of the UK solar industry is providing the most accurate and up-to-date deployment data on the UK solar industry.

“The developers and EPCs that enabled 2.5GW of solar PV within just three months should be given massive credit in helping the UK move towards its target to increase renewable energy contributions. The fact that 2.5GW was deployed with almost no media backlash also shows that the industry is conducting its affairs in a very professional manner.”

Solar Media's new division Solar Intelligence launches its first ever report on 1 July, 2015. The Large-scale Ground Mount UK database allows you to access raw data on the top-500 companies active in the UK Large Scale Ground Mount Sector. To pre-order or find out more about the report go here.

Note: if you pre-order before 1 July you can save £300 on the report paying only £995, reduced from the standard price of £1,295 from 1 July