Page 12 - AsiaElec Week 19

AsiaElec
NEWS IN BRIEF
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operations are the consignment works for receiving, storage, regasification of LNG, and providing regasified LNG to the power plant, under the contract with FGP.
JAPEX
RENEWABLES
ACWA Power eyes
enhanced growth as Silk
Road purchase completes
Saudi Arabian developer ACWA Power has set its sights on an accelerated growth trajectory after China’s Silk Road Fund completed the purchase of a minority stake in the firm’s renewables arm.
The deal, first announced last summer, will see the Chinese state fund take on a 49% stake in – and become a strategic partner of – ACWA Power RenewCo, which owns and operates nearly 1.7GW of CSP, solar PV and wind across the Middle East and Africa.
ACWA confirmed over the weekend that the deal had now completed, allowing the company to capitalise on the “rapidly growing potential” for renewables across emerging markets.
Paddy Padmanathan, chief executive officer at ACWA Power, said that the partnership with Silk Road Fund is testament to the “robust relations” between Saudi Arabia and China, and will allow it to “enhance”
the solar developer’s ambitious growth plans across numerous markets.
“Having the Silk Road Fund as a partner is a strategic step for us in supporting the economic transformation envisioned by the Belt and Road initiative as well as Saudi Arabia’s forward-looking Vision 2030.
“This partnership reaffirms ACWA Power’s strong commitment to contributing to the green development of the regions with its
reliable financial stability, cementing the company’s position as an attractive investment partner to stakeholders, locally and globally,” Rajit Nanda, CIO at ACWA Power, added.
China’s Belt and Road initiative constitutes a move from the Chinese government to spearhead infrastructure development and investments in key strategic markets, spanning India, east Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The Silk Road Fund, which has $40bn of capital to deploy into energy and transport projects, forms an important cornerstone of that initiative.
ACWA and the Silk Road Fund collaborated to win a tender for phase
four of the 5GW Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park in Dubai, which incorporates both hybrid CSP and solar PV capacities.
WIND
Indian wind capacity to reach 50GW by 2022
India’s wind energy capacity can only realistically reach 50 GW by 2022, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and MEC+ (MEC Intelligence) said in a new report.
The report, called India Wind Outlook Towards 2022: Looking Beyond the Headwinds, analyses the factors which have led to a drag on market growth for India’s wind energy industry over the past two years, and provides an assessment on the forecast along with a pathway to overcome these challenges to realise the high potential of the market.
The report highlights key challenges that must be overcome to restore strong wind market growth in India, including: grid and land availability; off-taker risks; onerous tender conditions; and low tariff caps. Collectively, these challenges have led to the
last three central wind tenders and all state wind tenders to be unsubscribed, retendered or even cancelled, while 80 per cent of awarded projects have been delayed by 6-12 months.
Three scenarios for new wind installations in India until 2022 are highlighted in
the report, ranging from 11-17 GW of installations depending on the extent and speed with which the government and industry are able to resolve these challenges.
In 2020, supply chain disruptions due to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis will further compound existing challenges to delay around 0.7-1.1 GW in new volume to 2021 and
also possible cancellation of some planned auctions.
India is the world’s fourth-largest onshore wind market by installations, with 37.5 GW of capacity as of 2019, and has the potential for more than 695 GW at 120 metres.
Wind is already the second most competitive energy source on India’s grid today, and the government has set a target
to reach total wind capacity of 60 GW by
2022 and 140 GW by 2030. However, project installation has been decelerating recently, with only 2.3 GW installed in 2019, nearly half of the 4.1 GW installed in 2017. The report finds that even in the high case scenario, the country is likely to fall short of its ambitious wind energy target for 2022.
GWEC
WIND
Vestas breaks annual wind turbine installation record
Vestas became the first wind turbine manufacturer to install more than 10 GW of wind capacity in a single year (2019), according to new analysis from Wood Mackenzie.
The Danish OEM’s grid-connected capacity of 11.3 GW in 2019 is an increase of 1.5 GW on 2018, with installations completed in over 35 markets. The company’s installations in the Americas region contributed more than 50% of capacity for the first time. This was driven by the US, Mexico and Argentina.
SGRE climbed to second position according to Wood Mackenzie’s research, dominating the 1.9 GW UK offshore market and achieving over 1 GW of onshore installations in the US and Spain.
GE grew its global dominance by connecting projects in 24 markets, with first- ever turbine installations in Greece, Oman, Jordan, Kazakhstan and Chile reaching 8.7
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Week 19 13•May•2020