A man rides a rickshaw along a street near India Gate in heavy smoggy conditions in New Delhi on December 6, 2019. (Photo by Jewel SAMAD / AFP)
A man rides a rickshaw along a street near India Gate in heavy smoggy conditions in New Delhi on December 6, 2019. (Photo by Jewel SAMAD / AFP)
A man rides a rickshaw along a street near India Gate in heavy smoggy conditions in New Delhi on December 6, 2019. (Photo by Jewel SAMAD / AFP)
A man rides a rickshaw along a street near India Gate in heavy smoggy conditions in New Delhi on December 6, 2019. (Photo by Jewel SAMAD / AFP)

Rising tensions add doubts over future of India's ambitious solar targets


Jennifer Gnana
  • English
  • Arabic

India's power developers are bracing for a projected increase in solar panel costs as South Asia’s largest economy plans to levy additional taxes on Chinese panels – its biggest driver of solar-powered growth.

New Delhi is planning to impose 20 per cent tariffs on solar cells, modules and inverters imported from China starting on August 1. The move comes in the wake of a widespread backlash against Chinese investments following clashes between the two Asian countries along their shared Himalayan border. India, cancelled key contracts with Chinese developers and banned 59 apps, including the popular ByteDance-owned Tiktok, which enjoys huge popularity in the country.

India’s plan to target the solar parts manufacturing sector is particularly significant as China provides 80 per cent of its imports.

Both countries have underpinned the growth of their booming economies on renewable transition. Plagued by smoggy skies and very high pollution levels in metropolises such as Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing, India and China devoted significant political capital to realise their renewable energy targets.

China plans to drive 16 per cent of its power from renewables by 2030, while India has more ambitious targets of reaching 57 per cent renewable capacity by 2027.

India’s commitments are over and above its pledge to the Paris Agreement signed in 2016, which stipulates a target of 40 per cent renewable electricity generation by 2030.

For now, renewables account for just over a fifth of India’s power generation. However, New Delhi plans to add 175 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2022. Of that, 100GW will come from solar, 60GW from wind, 10GW from biomass and 5GW from hydroelectricity.

With clean energy goals looming on the horizon and much of the capacity to come from solar, tariffs on the country’s biggest source of solar equipment could prove to be a set back.

But tariffs on Chinese panels are not new. In 2018, the Indian government imposed a 25 per cent tariff on solar cells and modules imported from China and Malaysia. The main motive then was to kickstart domestic manufacturing capacity, which has been unable to keep up with the country’s aggressive solar power generation targets.

The safeguard duty, as the levy is known, was subsequently lowered to 20 per cent in 2019 and to 15 per cent earlier this year. The government is considering a possible extension of the duty beyond its expiry on July 29, 2020.

However, despite the incentive, Indian domestic capacity has been unable to keep up with stiff Chinese competition.

"Indian modules are 33 per cent more expensive than imported Chinese modules,” said Kanika Chawla, director, centre for energy finance at the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

Poor utilisation of available domestic manufacturing capacity is one reason, she added.

"If we were able, without adding any infrastructure, just to use the domestic manufacturing capacity at scale, we would already bring down this price difference to about 21 per cent," Ms Chawla said. "So we go from about being a third less competitive to being a fifth less competitive.”

While new tariffs could put Indian producers on an equal footing with their Chinese competitors, there would be a significant mismatch over the pace at which additional manufacturing can be brought on stream and the country’s plans to add more solar power.

"As it currently stands, India’s domestic manufacturing capacity will not be able to support the country’s ambitious solar growth,” said Xiaojing Sun senior analyst, solar systems and technologies at Wood Mackenzie.

The country’s manufacturing capacity for solar modules and cells will reach 10GW and 6GW, respectively by the end of the year, according to the consultancy. India’s demand for solar power is set to reach 9GW in 2020 and will be above 12GW annually between 2021 and 2025.

"Unless the manufacturing capacity continues to expand in the next few years to beyond [the] 15GW level, domestic Indian manufacturers alone won’t be able to make up for the lost imports,” Ms Sun said.

India’s entrepreneurial solar developers are navigating a vexing conundrum.

An executive at a leading solar energy company in India said plans were being considered to ramp up domestic capacity, while continuing to import Chinese-made solar panels. Indian companies are bracing for solar panel costs to surge by 10 to 15 per cent, he added.

A silver lining in the evolving showdown is that projects that have already been tendered are likely to be exempted from the proposed new tariffs.

With movements in China restricted because of the coronavirus pandemic in the first part of the year, solar panel imports into India remained slow, with the South Asian country still processing backlogs from earlier projects.

China exported around 5.9GW worth of modules to India in 2019, according to Wood Mackenzie.

A possible “full-scale ban” on Chinese solar panels – which has not yet been considered by the Indian government – would impact Chinese manufacturers as India is a key market for them, said Ms Sun.

"However, India represents about 8 per cent of the total Chinese module exports and about 5 per cent of the total shipment of Chinese manufacturers in 2019," she added. "It’s a small scale that manufacturers can manage. The impact on the cost of solar in India should be a bigger concern here.”

The Covid-19 pandemic and policy uncertainty could weigh on the growth of non-hydro renewables capacity, according to Fitch Solutions, the research arm of the credit ratings agency Fitch, which lowered its India forecast for the short-term.

Non-hydro renewables capacity is expected to grow 6.3 per cent this year to reach 88GW, below an earlier projection of 10.1 per cent growth. Only 252MW of wind and 1,184MW of solar capacities were added in the first five months of the year, according to official statistics.

“We highlight risks of a double taxation on solar, which will increase project costs, change solar tariff rates and jeopardise the economic feasibility of several projects in the pipeline,” Fitch Solutions said in its report.

While the agency forecast a pick-up in non-hydro renewables capacity for the second half of the year, the first half of 2020 also had a few bright spots.

In late June, India selected bidders for a mammoth 12GW solar energy project tendered by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). The $9 billion (Dh33bn) scheme also has a local manufacturing component with an annual capacity of 3GW. The tender is the first of its kind to incorporate manufacturing alongside power generation to the grid. The size of the project is also significant as it eclipses the total value of solar power added in 2019, which was 7.3GW.

In another glimmer of hope for India’s solar sector, the SECI attracted a record low tariff of 2.36 rupees (Dh0.11/$0.03) per kilowatt hour from a Spanish developer for a 300MW segment of a 2GW auction in June.

“The support to renewable energy actually is one that is quite deep and clear,” CEEW’s Ms Chawla said, citing India’s renewable growth story as one of intersectionality with several development priorities.

Whether India is able to achieve its solar ambitions of 175GW in 2022 is of secondary importance, she said.

"It's less important whether we reach there in 2022 or 2020 to 2024," Ms Chawla. "But more than that, the 175GW is really the floor and not the ceiling. So we will actually continue to grow beyond that as well, if you take a 2030 outlook."

Name: Peter Dicce

Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics

Favourite sport: soccer

Favourite team: Bayern Munich

Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer

Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates 

 

The specs: 2019 BMW i8 Roadster

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Engine: 1.5L three-cylinder petrol, plus 11.6 kWh lithium-ion battery

Transmission: Six-speed automatic

Power: 374hp (total)

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Itcan profile

Founders: Mansour Althani and Abdullah Althani

Based: Business Bay, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India

Sector: Technology, digital marketing and e-commerce

Size: 70 employees 

Revenue: On track to make Dh100 million in revenue this year since its 2015 launch

Funding: Self-funded to date

 

The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting

2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

The specs

  Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now

The specs

Price: From Dh180,000 (estimate)

Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged and supercharged in-line four-cylinder

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic

Power: 320hp @ 5,700rpm

Torque: 400Nm @ 2,200rpm

Fuel economy, combined: 9.7L / 100km

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
McLaren GT specs

Engine: 4-litre twin-turbo V8

Transmission: seven-speed

Power: 620bhp

Torque: 630Nm

Price: Dh875,000

On sale: now

ATP RANKINGS (NOVEMBER 4)

1. Rafael Nadal (ESP) 9,585 pts ( 1)
2. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 8,945 (-1)
3. Roger Federer (SUI) 6,190
4. Daniil Medvedev (RUS) 5,705
5. Dominic Thiem (AUT) 5,025
6. Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) 4,000 ( 1)
7. Alexander Zverev (GER) 2,945 (-1)
8. Matteo Berrettini (ITA) 2,670 ( 1)
9. Roberto Bautista (ESP) 2,540 ( 1)
10. Gaël Monfils (FRA) 2,530 ( 3)
11. David Goffin (BEL) 2,335 ( 3)
12. Fabio Fognini (ITA) 2,290
13. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 2,180 (-2)
14. Diego Schwartzman (ARG) 2,125 ( 1)
15. Denis Shapovalov (CAN) 2,050 ( 13)
16. Stan Wawrinka (SUI) 2,000
17. Karen Khachanov (RUS) 1,840 (-9)
18. Alex De Minaur (AUS) 1,775
19. John Isner (USA) 1,770 (-2)
20. Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) 1,747 ( 7)

Salah in numbers

€39 million: Liverpool agreed a fee, including add-ons, in the region of 39m (nearly Dh176m) to sign Salah from Roma last year. The exchange rate at the time meant that cost the Reds £34.3m - a bargain given his performances since.

13: The 25-year-old player was not a complete stranger to the Premier League when he arrived at Liverpool this summer. However, during his previous stint at Chelsea, he made just 13 Premier League appearances, seven of which were off the bench, and scored only twice.

57: It was in the 57th minute of his Liverpool bow when Salah opened his account for the Reds in the 3-3 draw with Watford back in August. The Egyptian prodded the ball over the line from close range after latching onto Roberto Firmino's attempted lob.

7: Salah's best scoring streak of the season occurred between an FA Cup tie against West Brom on January 27 and a Premier League win over Newcastle on March 3. He scored for seven games running in all competitions and struck twice against Tottenham.

3: This season Salah became the first player in Premier League history to win the player of the month award three times during a term. He was voted as the division's best player in November, February and March.

40: Salah joined Roger Hunt and Ian Rush as the only players in Liverpool's history to have scored 40 times in a single season when he headed home against Bournemouth at Anfield earlier this month.

30: The goal against Bournemouth ensured the Egyptian achieved another milestone in becoming the first African player to score 30 times across one Premier League campaign.

8: As well as his fine form in England, Salah has also scored eight times in the tournament phase of this season's Champions League. Only Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, with 15 to his credit, has found the net more often in the group stages and knockout rounds of Europe's premier club competition.

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Indoor Cricket World Cup Dubai 2017

Venue Insportz, Dubai; Admission Free

Fixtures - Open Men 2pm: India v New Zealand, Malaysia v UAE, Singapore v South Africa, Sri Lanka v England; 8pm: Australia v Singapore, India v Sri Lanka, England v Malaysia, New Zealand v South Africa

Fixtures - Open Women Noon: New Zealand v England, UAE v Australia; 6pm: England v South Africa, New Zealand v Australia

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

VEZEETA PROFILE

Date started: 2012

Founder: Amir Barsoum

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: HealthTech / MedTech

Size: 300 employees

Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)

Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC

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Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12

Power: 819hp

Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm

Price: From Dh1,700,000

Available: Now

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Power: 727hp

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Other acts on the Jazz Garden bill

Sharrie Williams
The American singer is hugely respected in blues circles due to her passionate vocals and songwriting. Born and raised in Michigan, Williams began recording and touring as a teenage gospel singer. Her career took off with the blues band The Wiseguys. Such was the acclaim of their live shows that they toured throughout Europe and in Africa. As a solo artist, Williams has also collaborated with the likes of the late Dizzy Gillespie, Van Morrison and Mavis Staples.
Lin Rountree
An accomplished smooth jazz artist who blends his chilled approach with R‘n’B. Trained at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, Rountree formed his own band in 2004. He has also recorded with the likes of Kem, Dwele and Conya Doss. He comes to Dubai on the back of his new single Pass The Groove, from his forthcoming 2018 album Stronger Still, which may follow his five previous solo albums in cracking the top 10 of the US jazz charts.
Anita Williams
Dubai-based singer Anita Williams will open the night with a set of covers and swing, jazz and blues standards that made her an in-demand singer across the emirate. The Irish singer has been performing in Dubai since 2008 at venues such as MusicHall and Voda Bar. Her Jazz Garden appearance is career highlight as she will use the event to perform the original song Big Blue Eyes, the single from her debut solo album, due for release soon.

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20The%20Cloud%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202018%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20George%20Karam%20and%20Kamil%20Rogalinski%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hub71%2C%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20UAE%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Food%20technology%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%20size%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2410m%2B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Middle%20East%20Venture%20Partners%2C%20Olayan%20Financing%2C%20Rua%20Growth%20Fund%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
School counsellors on mental well-being

Schools counsellors in Abu Dhabi have put a number of provisions in place to help support pupils returning to the classroom next week.

Many children will resume in-person lessons for the first time in 10 months and parents previously raised concerns about the long-term effects of distance learning.

Schools leaders and counsellors said extra support will be offered to anyone that needs it. Additionally, heads of years will be on hand to offer advice or coping mechanisms to ease any concerns.

“Anxiety this time round has really spiralled, more so than from the first lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Priya Mitchell, counsellor at The British School Al Khubairat in Abu Dhabi.

“Some have got used to being at home don’t want to go back, while others are desperate to get back.

“We have seen an increase in depressive symptoms, especially with older pupils, and self-harm is starting younger.

“It is worrying and has taught us how important it is that we prioritise mental well-being.”

Ms Mitchell said she was liaising more with heads of year so they can support and offer advice to pupils if the demand is there.

The school will also carry out mental well-being checks so they can pick up on any behavioural patterns and put interventions in place to help pupils.

At Raha International School, the well-being team has provided parents with assessment surveys to see how they can support students at home to transition back to school.

“They have created a Well-being Resource Bank that parents have access to on information on various domains of mental health for students and families,” a team member said.

“Our pastoral team have been working with students to help ease the transition and reduce anxiety that [pupils] may experience after some have been nearly a year off campus.

"Special secondary tutorial classes have also focused on preparing students for their return; going over new guidelines, expectations and daily schedules.”

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

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