Page 10 - AsiaElec Week 33

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are pleased to further the company’s global development.”
Energy Vault has already worked with Mexi- co’s CEMEX and India’s Tata Power as it tests its new storage technology and aims to build its rst commercially operational facility.
Under its CEO Masayoshi Son, So Bank’s $100bn Vision Fund – the world’s largest tech- nology-investment vehicle – has invested in solar projects in Japan, India and Saudi Arabia. It has contracted for 3 GW of solar capacity in India and 700 MW in Japan.
Son has talked up ambitious plans to build 220 GW in Saudi Arabia and India by 2030.
Yet the company has come up against a num- ber of obstacles, and some of its ambitious solar plans could be in jeopardy.
It has failed to seal any concrete agreements in the desert kingdom, which has talked of moving away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
In India, SoftBank’s subsidiary SB Energy has been accused of manipulating bids for solar capacity, leading to the cancellation in 2018 of 2,400 MW of tenders. e Indian government accused SB Energy, which has plans to invest $20bn to bring online 20 GW of PV capacity across India, of xing the bidding at too high a level.™
POLICY
Indonesia flexible on 2020 energy subsidies
Indonesia’s 2020 policy on energy subsidies will be “ exible” and loosely based on global oil price moves, Reuters reported, but an extension of the current policy to freeze fuel and power prices wasn’t ruled out.
President Joko Widodo ordered energy prices to be kept at in 2018 and 2019 by hiking subsidies, which the government said was aimed at boosting domestic consumption though others criticised it as a populist move before a tough re-election campaign.
Widodo won the April election by a comfortable margin and is set to begin his second term in October. Some economists now expect the president to unfreeze prices to
NEWS IN BRIEF
redirect subsidy spending to more productive use. In Widodo’s 2020 budget proposals, submitted to parliament on Friday, the government requested a cut in diesel subsidies to 1,000 rupiah ($0.0701) a litre, from 2,000 rupiah a litre this year.
e proposals, which need parliamentary approval, allotted 137.5 trillion rupiah of subsidies for diesel, liqui ed petroleum gas and electricity in 2020, down slightly from this year’s 142.6 trillion rupiah.
However, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the budget plan didn’t mean the government will allow energy prices to freely oat in line with market moves in 2020.
In 2018, Indonesia spent 153.5 trillion rupiah on energy subsidies, up more than 60% from the original budget, in order freeze fuel prices.
HYDRO
PTC India to buy surplus
power from Bhutan’s
Mangdechhu project
In a move that will help strengthen India’s energy security architecture with neighboring Bhutan, PTC India Ltd, the country’s largest electricity trader, will buy surplus power from state-run Druk Green Power Corp Ltd for the 720MW Mangdechhu hydropower project, the Indian rm said in a statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the major hydropower project during his recent visit to the strategically located Himalayan nation as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s “neighbourhood rst” policy.
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Week 33 20•August•2019