Page 15 - AsiaElec Week 18

AsiaElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
AsiaElec
solar manufacturers and installers now the government has extended the industrial shutdown until at least May 16.
“We want the assistance to minimise the financial losses the sector incurred during the shutdown and keep afloat the investment opportunity,” wrote Munawar Moin, president of the Solar Module Manufacturers Association of Bangladesh, in a letter to the Ministry of Finance and Commerce.
Moin also cited a shortage of solar panel raw materials during the Bangladeshi lockdown period. The president of the industry body said 10,000 people are employed by the industry in Bangladesh and the halt to productivity had also reduced foreign currency generated for the treasury by exports.
The Covid-19 crisis dashed hopes for the industry after it had earlier designated solar panels the nation’s product of the year, raising interest among investors.
Bangladesh has nine solar companies which, combined, can produce more than 100 MW of modules per year.
ENERGY STORAGE
TES makes strategic
investment in GenPlus
Singapore
ES announced today its strategic investment in GenPlus, a leading Southeast Asia provider of energy storage systems (ESS) and power systems across the Asia-Pacific region.
GenPlus’s hybrid ESS offer scalable turnkey solutions that use retired electric
vehicle batteries for various commercial and residential energy needs in the secondary market. ESS use a network of optimally connected second-life battery cells to store electricity and are a viable power alternative for green energy plants, remote mining power, and base transmit stations, among other applications.
GenPlus joining TES Group supports TES’s vision for closing the loop on battery technology and complements TES’s recent $25mn investment in new lithium battery recycling facilities in Singapore and Grenoble.
“Investing in technology that keeps TES at the forefront of the sustainability movement is in our DNA,” said Gary Steele, TES’s chief executive officer.
“Looking ahead, by 2030, there will be over six million battery packs retiring from electric vehicles each year. The global ESS processing infrastructure does not have enough capacity today to provide those batteries with the second life that true closed-loop solutions demand. GenPlus’s management team, engineering strength, and experience will help TES fill that gap. “
TES
RURAL ELECTRIFICATION
ADB provides $346mn
loan for rural electricity in
Maharashtra, India
The Asian Development Bank (ADB)
has approved a $346mn loan to India to help provide efficient and reliable power connection to rural agriculture customers in the state of Maharashtra.
Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India, and about half of the state’s labor force is engaged in agriculture and related activities in the rural areas. Agriculture output, however, has been impacted by lack of irrigation, less-than-efficient use of electricity and water, as well as inadequate storage
and connectivity to markets. The loan will support the state government’s high voltage distribution system (HVDS) programme for new grid-connected rural agricultural customers across the state.
“Providing efficient, reliable, and good quality power to rural agriculture customers in Maharashtra will improve agricultural productivity and efficiency in the electricity value chain,” said ADB Senior Energy Specialist Len George. “Wider adoption
of HVDS with metering and usage-based tariffs sets the stage for investments in energy efficient pumps, drip irrigation and could support improvements in subsidy management.”
The loan will be under ADB’s results- based lending (RBL) modality, where fund disbursements are linked to the achievement of agreed programme results rather than
to upfront expenditures, as is the case with traditional investment lending.
This first ADB-financed RBL programme in South Asia’s energy sector will help in the early construction and installation of metered HVDS through the installation of about 46,800 km of 11-kV grid extension lines, construction and upgrading of 121 33/11
kV distribution substations. The programme will also build institutional capacity in the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) on HVDS.
Week 18 05•May•2020
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