Page 8 - AsiaElec Week 12 2021

AsiaElec RENEWABLES AsiaElec

Coal India moves into solar

INDIA COAL India, the world’s largest coal producer, sector. The government also wants to reduce
wants to move into solar power by manufac- imports, while gradually reducing coal’s share of
turing solar wafers and bidding in the country’s the power generation mix.
solar auctions. Coal India aims to increase domestic produc-
Coal India chairman Pramod Agarwal said tion to 1bn tonnes per year (tpy) and is following
that a joint venture with state-run NLC India a policy of import substitution in a bid to meet
aims to invest INR125bn ($1.73bn) into 3,000 the government’s target of halting coal imports
MW of solar capacity by 2024, with Coal India by 2023.
supplying INR60bn ($850mn), Reuters reported. Coal India is aiming to replace 100mn tonnes
Its solar ambitions accompany contin- of the country’s coal imports with domestic pro-
ued plans to close small mines and reduce its duction in the 2020-21 fiscal year, which ends at
workforce. the end of March, rising to 150mn tonnes in the
Coal India closed 82 mines in the three years following year. India imported 249mn tonnes of
to March 2020, resulting in cuts to its workforce coal in 2019-20.
of 18,600 employees. Coal accounts for over 75% of electricity gen-
“Coal, as you know, we’re going to lose busi- erated in India, with CIL – the world’s largest coal
ness in the next two, three decades. Solar will miner – accounting for more than 80% of India’s
take over (from) coal slowly as a major energy domestic production.
provider in the coming years,” Agarwal told Indian renewable energy reached 92.97 GW
Reuters. at the end of February, with a further 50.15 GW
“We are just exploring the possibilities where under development.
we can invest in solar wafer production, nobody However, it is still some way short of being
is (currently) there in the country,” he said. on course to meet its 175-GW target for the end
India currently manufactured solar cells and of 2022.
modules, but not wafers, a key component. Most India aims to meet 40% of its energy require-
are imported from China, but the government ments from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030,
plans to impose customs duties on some solar amounting to 450 GW.
equipment from April 2022 in a bid to stimulate To meet this target, the government has said
domestic manufacturing. that the country must install 25 GW per year of
As well as diversifying into solar, Coal India solar capacity until 2030.
faces stuttering output at home. The government Although Coal India’s move into solar is
is promoting renewables while also trying to small compared to its existing coal output, in
make the coal sector more efficient. the longer term the company will face pressure
For example, the government has auctioned to reduce production, while losing its markets in
coal blocks for commercial mining in a bid to the power sector.™
bring in more private companies into the coal

China’s Trina Solar launches

storage business unit

CHINA TRINA Solar has launched a dedicated energy of working with independent power producers
storage business unit to meet the growing (IPPs), developers and engineering, procure-
demand for storage solutions. ment and construction (EPC) companies in the
The new business, Trina Storage, will provide solar industry to deliver its storage projects.
solutions for solar-plus-storage, standalone and Terry Chen, head of Trina Solar overseas stor-
other applications, including large industrial and age business, expects to see exponential growth
microgrid. It will offer “flexible and highly scala- in the renewable energy industry in the next few
ble storage solutions”. years as energy needs increase. “Storage is the
Trina Storage will offer hardware, software only solution that can support this transition
and services based on lithium iron phosphate effectively. Therefore customers need a trusted
(LFP) batteries and a power conversion system storage supplier with a profound knowledge of
(PCS) in a containerised solution, while also pro- the energy industry,” he said.
viding monitoring and support. It will make use Trina Solar is one of the biggest PV module
of Trina Solar’s existing supply chain to deliver its providers in the world. The group is targeting
products and services. more than 50 GW of total solar module assem-
Trina said it will build upon its experience bly capacity by the end of 2021 and is currently

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