India Just Massively Boosted Its Solar Target For 2015

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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/02/3422286/india-solar-target/

Bloomberg reports that India just increased the amount of solar power plant licenses it plans to award next year by 30 percent — a move that adds one additional gigawatt of capacity to the government’s 2015 target.

The push is part of India’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), which was launched in 2010 by prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The goal is to install 10 gigawatts of solar by 2017 and 20 gigawatts by 2022. India’s current solar capacity now stands at 2.18 gigawatts — part of 27 gigawatts of overall renewable capacity that includes wind and hydropower — after it added one gigawatt of solar over the course of 2013.

However, the Indian government also downscaled its target for solar-thermal plants in the same decision, reducing its 2015 target to 100 megawatts of capacity from 1,080 megawatts originally. Rather than producing electricity from solar photovoltaic cells, solar-thermal plants use mirrors to concentrate massive amounts of sunlight on a single point, thus heating water to steam that drives electricity-generating turbines. Only one of the eight solar-thermal projects India had scheduled for completion last year is finished, while the other seven have faced delays and cost overruns.

India’s push for solar has not come without a few other bumps. The JNNSM raised the ire of American officials by requiring that half of the solar components purchased to meet the target come from domestic Indian suppliers. More recently, Phase II of the JNNSM expanded that requirement to the purchase of thin film solar panels, which the U.S. often exports to India. U.S. representatives say the requirement violates trade agreements the two countries agreed to under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. India and the U.S. have until April 11 to come to an agreement before the WTO must move in itself to resolve the dispute.

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