From pv magazine India

ReNew, a Nasdaq-listed renewables company in India, has signed a 437.6 MW green attribute sales contract with Microsoft.

This is one of India’s largest corporate renewable agreements and part of five power purchase agreements (PPAs), totaling 2.2 GW, that ReNew signed in the three months to June 30, 2024, raising its total portfolio to 15.6 GW.

ReNew will allocate approximately $15 million from the contract to a community fund supporting environmental justice initiatives focused on women’s livelihoods, economic empowerment, energy access, rural electrification, environmental remediation, and water quality improvement.

This work will be carried out in partnership with ReNew Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm dedicated to creating sustainable communities through climate action, with a focus on women and youth.

“Microsoft has ambitious renewable energy and decarbonization goals.  This agreement with ReNew accelerates our progress towards these goals while benefiting local communities through initiatives such as rural electrification and initiatives to improve women’s livelihoods,” said Puneet Chandok, president of Microsoft India and South Asia. “We are taking a holistic approach that includes progressing our climate goals and empowering the ecosystem with the technology that is needed to build a more resilient future.”

ReNew Chairman and CEO Sumant Sinha said that this milestone is crucial in ReNew’s efforts to support global decarbonization goals for governments and businesses. He added that as a sustainability-focused organization, ReNew prioritizes the energy transition as part of its mission to create a better world.

From pv magazine India

Cleantech Solar, a supplier of renewable energy to corporate entities, has secured a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with US module manufacturer First Solar. It has agreed to construct 150 MW of solar and 16.8 MW of wind-generating assets in India, supplying around 7.3 GWh of clean electricity to First Solar’s new 3.3 GW vertically integrated solar manufacturing facility in the state of Tamil Nadu.

Once it is fully commissioned by the third quarter of 2024, the solar and wind generation assets are expected to cover up to 70% of the facility’s anticipated electricity needs. They are expected to displace almost 7,000 kilotons of CO2 emissions over the duration of the PPA.

Cleantech Solar will procure 150 MW of advanced, India-made Series 7 thin-film solar panels from First Solar, for use in the PV component of the project. The modules are expected to be delivered in the first half of 2024.

First Solar’s cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film modules have among the lowest carbon and water footprint of any commercially available PV modules. The modules are included in the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registry for sustainable electronics, signifying strong performance on metrics evaluating the management of substances in the product, manufacturing energy and water use, product packaging, end-of-life recycling and corporate responsibility.

“Our new manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu sets a high benchmark for responsible and sustainable vertically integrated solar manufacturing, not just in India, but globally,” said Sujoy Ghosh, vice president and managing director of First Solar India. “By powering our operations with clean, renewably-generated electricity, we are working to further reduce our environmental footprint, which is already the lowest in the industry.”

First Solar’s Tamil Nadu plant, located in an area of high baseline water stress, is purportedly the world’s first net-zero water withdrawal solar manufacturing facility.

“This collaboration extends beyond powering First Solar’s flagship manufacturing facility in India; it involves leveraging their advanced, ultra-low carbon thin film solar panels to energize our solar assets,” said Sachin Jain, chief executive officer of Cleantech Solar.

With this latest agreement, Cleantech Solar’s total portfolio in Tamil Nadu now stands at nearly 500 MW (including solar, wind and hybrid power projects under operational and construction stages).

Singapore-based Cleantech Solar has built numerous solar and wind projects across India and Southeast Asia, with around 1.2 GWp of assets in various stages of development. The company is backed by Keppel Corp., Keppel Asia Infrastructure Fund, and Shell Singapore.

From pv magazine India

Waaree Energies, India’s largest PV module manufacturer, said this week that it will set up its first U.S. manufacturing facility close to Houston, Texas. The solar module factory, to be built in the town of Brookshire, will have an initial annual production capacity of 3 GW by the end of 2024.

Waaree said it plans to invest up to $1 billion over the next four years to scale the U.S. facility’s capacity up to 5 GW by 2027 – potentially making it one of the largest solar module factories in the United States.

The company said it will also add an integrated solar cell facility at the site. It plans to make it operational by 2025.

In total, Waaree’s new production plan is expected to create more than 1,500 total jobs, once it is at full capacity.

Waaree already has a major presence in the U.S. solar market. It said it has supplied more than 4 GW of modules from its current Indian facility to U.S. customers to date.

Waaree’s ambitious U.S. expansion plan has the support of a long-term supply agreement with SB Energy, which has more than 2 GW of solar in operation, 1 GW under construction, and another 15 GW of solar and storage in development across the United States.

Waaree aims to supply multiple gigawatts of solar modules to SB Energy over the next five years, following the commissioning of the Brookshire facility, which is expected to be operational in 2024.

Most of the major components used for the production of the solar modules will be sourced domestically, said Waaree.

From pv magazine India

Indian manufacturer Waaree Energies Ltd announced this week it has supplied 850 MW of mono PERC solar PV modules to Acciona Energia’s projects under development in the USA, surpassing 4 GW of panel shipments to the US in 2023. 

Waaree said it has also signed a three-year agreement with Acciona Energia to supply 1.5 GW of n-type TOPCon solar modules for Acciona’s additional US projects from 2024 to 2026. “A total of 2.35 GW of order is to be delivered, out of which Waaree Energies has already delivered 850 MW,” announced the company.

Acciona Energia is a Spain-based renewable energy leader that operates more than 1 GW of solar, wind power, and industrial-scale energy storage projects in the US. 

Waaree supplied 850 MW of solar panels for Acciona’s four major solar projects: 56 MW in Fort Bend (Texas); 129 MW in High Point (Illinois); 288 MW in Union (Ohio); and 375 MW in Red Tailed Hawk Solar (Texas). With these deliveries, Waaree has now supplied more than 4 GW of solar modules to customers in the United States in 2023.  

“Waaree delivered the modules four weeks ahead of schedule, enabling Acciona to meet its project commercial operation date timelines. In line with Waaree’s commitment toward ensuring the appropriate standards of product quality and performance, the solar modules supplied for the projects have undergone internal and third-party quality testing,” stated Waaree.

The U.S. solar market has seen an average annual growth of 24% over the past ten years, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), and that growth is expected to continue. In the first half of 2023, solar comprised 45% of all new generating capacity. 4.4% of single-family homes in the U.S. have solar PV systems installed, and that is expected to grow to 15% by 2030, per an analysis of government research by USA Facts. 

From pv magazine India

Global investments in the solar energy sector touched the $308 billion mark in 2022, registering a massive increase of 36% over 2021 levels. Still, solar accounted for only 11.5% of the overall energy investment in 2022 ($2.6 trillion), according to a new report by the International Solar Alliance, released at its recent sixth assembly in New Delhi

The report stated that solar investments are overwhelmingly concentrated in a few developed countries in the Asia Pacific Region, followed by Europe and North America. In 2022, Asia Pacific and Europe and North America accounted for 55% and 33% of global solar project development investment, respectively. Within these regions, investments have been dominated by economies that have a mature PV market, such as China, the United States, Japan, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea, Brazil, Vietnam, Germany, and India. 

China and the United States have consistently attracted the most annual solar investments, with their combined share of about 50% of all solar investments since 2015. Only a small fraction of global investments in the solar sector is being made in emerging and developing economies such as the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Thus, these regions are lagging behind in the race of solar energy deployment.

The report states that to accelerate global investments in solar energy, it is vital to prioritize these developing and underdeveloped regions across the world that have a huge unrealized solar potential.

Solar project development accounted for nearly 90% of the total investments made across the solar value chain in 2022. Segment wise, utility-scale solar segment accounted for the highest investments in solar project deployment with a share of 43% followed by residential solar segment at 39% and commercial & industrial (C&I) solar segment at 18% in 2022.

Private finance was a major contributor to solar energy projects, accounting for more than 80% of total investments between 2015 and 2022. The public sector contributed to the remaining investments during the same period. 

The report states that for ensuring just energy transition and inclusion, more finance needs to be mobilized from public players as most of the private financing is directed towards advanced economies.

From pv magazine India

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) have jointly launched the U.S.- India Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP) under the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced RETAP during a meeting on June 22. The move underscored their growing collaboration on emerging technologies to expedite the clean energy transition.

RETAP was established to enhance bilateral collaboration, emphasizing technology-driven, time-bound results. Its primary goal is to advance emerging renewable technologies for deployment and scaling.

Initially, RETAP will focus on green and clean hydrogen, wind energy, long-duration energy storage, and the exploration of geothermal, ocean/tidal energy, and other emerging technologies, to be determined mutually in the future.

The DOE and the MNRE have outlined an initial workplan for RETAP collaboration, guided by five themes: research and development, innovative technology piloting and testing, advanced training and skill development, policy and planning for renewable energy technologies and enabling technologies, and investment, incubation, and outreach programs.

During the meeting, delegations shared information about emerging technology developments in each country, covering hydrogen, energy storage, wind power, geothermal energy, marine renewable energy technologies, and clean energy deployment programs.

from pv magazine India

Gujarat, India-based Prescinto Technologies announced this week it had successfully raised $6.5 million in financing and launched in the U.S. market by securing a deal with an energy storage specialist. Prescinto will provide real-time data monitoring and analytics of energy storage assets installed by the American company globally. 

The deal also marks the expansion of Prescinto’s technology solutions, which already manage more than 12 GW of solar and wind energy assets across 14 countries. Prescinto claims its asset performance management platforms offer up to 7% or more improvement in energy generation for solar and wind energy projects and optimization for battery energy storage systems (BESS).

The company’s cloud-based, asset-agnostic platform remotely retrieves critical battery data, tracks energy block-wise data, and provides critical insights to improve asset performance and automation. To provide a tailor-made solution, Prescinto provides a SaaS license for operations and engineering teams with a customized performance analytics tool for monitoring and testing battery health, battery performance enhancement, module tracking, and overall digitization of the life cycle of a battery’s performance.

 “This partnership with a global leader in energy storage will be instrumental in opening doors to the energy storage space and our clientele/business in the United States,” said Puneet Singh Jaggi, founder and CEO of Prescinto. “Our advanced monitoring and analytics technology enables our clients to maximize the value of their energy storage assets through market-specific optimization.”

From pv magazine India

Reliance Industries revealed plans to acquire 79.4% of California-based SenseHawk for $32 million by the end of this year.

SenseHawk develops software-based tools for solar asset management. It accelerates solar projects from planning to production by helping companies to streamline processes and use automation. Reliance Industries, which recorded a net profit of $9 billion in fiscal 2021-22, said the investment will support SenseHawk’s future growth and R&D.

“In collaboration with SenseHawk, we will drive down costs, enhance productivity and improve on-time performance to deliver the lowest [levelized cost of electricity] for solar projects globally, and make solar energy the go-to source of power in lockstep with our vision for solar energy,” said Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries.

SenseHawk has helped more than 140 customers in 15 countries to adopt new technology at more than 600 sites, with total assets surpassing 100 GW. Its Solar Digital Platform offers end-to-end management of the solar asset lifecycle.  

“This partnership will open new use cases, help our nascent markets, and offer higher value to customers across the solar lifecycle,” said Rahul Sankhe, the president and co-founder of SenseHawk. “We are on a mission to improve the solar energy ecosystem, acquiring 50% of the market by 2025.”

Covington & Burling LLP and Khaitan & Co. are acting as legal advisers on the deal. Deloitte is serving as the accounting and tax adviser to Reliance Industries on the transaction.