In the first instalment of a three-part series on India’s solar sector, CarbonCopy uncovers a stark contrast: while manufacturers and developers flourish, discoms, EPC firms, and consumers grapple with significant challenges. Read more
India added just 14.9 GW of fresh solar generation capacity in the first half of 2024. If this trend lasts through the year, the country will add 30 GW of fresh solar capacity — half of its current manufacturing capacity.
Price surge or power surge? India’s solar conundrum
In the first instalment of a three-part series on India’s solar sector, CarbonCopy uncovers a stark contrast: while manufacturers and developers flourish, discoms, EPC firms, and consumers grapple with significant challenges.
Where is India’s solar sector headed? One possible view of the future came in September last year. That month, REMCL (Railway Energy Management Company), a joint venture between Indian Railways and RITES, floated a tender seeking 750 MW of round the clock renewable power.
The bids triggered excitement across India’s renewable sector. The lowest bidder, Gujarat-based Torrent Power, had sought just ₹4.25/unit. The other four winning bidders — ReNew Solar; TEQ Green Power; NTPC Renewable Energy; and Tata Power Renewable — had bid between ₹4.37 and ₹4.43 per unit.
Three months earlier, another REMCL tender had netted an even lower price. Chasing a 300 MW renewable round the clock tender, Bangalore-based Ayana Renewable had bid ₹4.1/kWh. To put these numbers in perspective, the cost of thermal power/kWh stood at ₹4.13/kWh in 2022.
Intermittency has been the bugbear of the renewable sector. It has fomented grid instability, compelled discoms to simultaneously pay for standby power from thermal power projects and been a major argument against renewable energy adoption.
With these bids, the sector saw chatter on whether ‘round the clock’ renewable power had finally turned cheaper than thermal power — and if exponential growth would now follow.
India is scaling solar
Other developments also suggest the sector is about to see rapid expansion.
Three years ago, it was in trouble. Between weak market design and muddled policy variably pushing indigenisation and faster solar deployment, solar capacity addition was slowing.
Much has changed since. Prices of Chinese solar modules have kept falling, now reaching previously unimaginable levels. “Just 13 years ago, in 2011, panels were selling for about $1.48 a watt and the stretch goal was to reach 50 US cents a watt,” says industry tracker Wood Mackenzie. “Now prices in China are closing in on just a fifth of that level.”
In response, though, India has erected trade barriers, replacing erstwhile import duties with more stringent policies — like the Approved List of Module Makers (ALMM) revived this April, and Domestic Content Requirements — to ensure local procurement. A PLI scheme has been rolled out as well — to manufacture not only modules, but also cells, ingots, wafers and polysilicon locally — in the hope of decoupling India’s solar sector from that of China.
With that, the country’s module manufacturing sector is seeing a boom. As CarbonCopy had reported in 2021, India’s energy sector is rebundling. The trend started with thermal power integrating backward into coal-mines and integrating forward into discoms. In the past three years, more players have grown laterally into renewables — and renewables manufacturing.
At one end are conglomerates like Adani, which have not only diversified from coal and gas into solar and hydel — apart from investing in transmission lines and discoms — but also backwards integrated into renewables manufacturing. A clutch of renewable developers — like ReNew — have backwards integrated into solar manufacturing as well. Existing manufacturers — like Premier Energies and Waaree Solar — are scaling up. Waaree has announced plans to set up a manufacturing plant in the US. Premier Energies has raised money through an IPO. Waaree’s IPO will follow.
“If we get our act on land acquisition and transmission together, India can more than double its installed capacity of solar power — up from the current 81 GW — by 2030,”
– a senior advisor to the Indian government, who spoke to CarbonCopy on the condition of anonymity.
A clutch of neophytes have entered module manufacturing as well. India now has over a hundred module manufacturers — up from four or five in 2016. “As many as 34 are setting up manufacturing capacity over 1 GW,” Subrahmanyam Pulipaka of the National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) told CarbonCopy. “Seventy-four plus firms are adding manufacturing capacities up to a GW.” Along the way, says All India Solar Manufacturers Association, India’s solar manufacturing capacity has spiked from 10 GW in 2021 to 60 GW now. More capacity is in the works, boosting panel production to 110 GW by 2025-26.
As those modules get deployed, India’s installed solar generation capacity will rise. “If we get our act on land acquisition and transmission together, India can more than double its installed capacity of solar power — up from the current 81 GW — by 2030,” said a senior advisor to the Indian government, who spoke to CarbonCopy on the condition of anonymity.
An uneven burden
And yet, look beneath these narratives, and you will find two limits — one new, the other old — to solar’s growth in India.
Domestic demand continues to stay low. India added just 14.9 GW of fresh solar generation capacity in the first half of 2024. If this trend lasts through the year, the country will add 30 GW of fresh solar capacity — half of its current manufacturing capacity.
Incredibly, despite market demand lagging production, domestic prices of locally-manufactured modules have spiked over the past two years. “Domestic solar modules are now 90% more expensive than imports, with prices reaching 18 cents per watt in June compared to 9.1 cents for imported modules,” Indian Express reported in August. “This gap has widened since FY22, when domestic prices were 6% higher than imports.”
Given ALMM, most manufacturers import cells from China and assemble them into modules in India. “The present price of cells in China is around 6 cents… after imposition of 25% of duty, which we have put in place, it comes to 7.5 cents,” wrote former Union minister of power RK Singh in file notings accessed by the newspaper. “The fabrication cost is not more than 7-8 cents. Therefore, the modules should be available for 16 cents; however, the module manufacturers are charging 23-24 cents.” He described this as “excessive profiteering”.
The implications are clear “Developers’ project costs must be going up,” a former solar developer told CarbonCopy. “They will have to either take those losses onto their books or pass them onto discoms and end-customers.”
Manufacturers are not the only entity loading costs onto others. Solar developers, too, push a part of their costs onto India’s wider energy architecture. They don’t, for instance, pay transmission charges. Such costs, not to mention the bigger cost of arranging backup power given renewables’ intermittency, fall on discoms and are thereafter transferred to customers and taxpayers.
As this series will show, it made sense to subsidise solar when it was small and needed nurturing. These incentives, however, have remained untouched even after the sector grew much bigger. On the whole, India’s electricity landscape has an uneven distribution of risks and rewards where solar manufacturers and developers make supernormal profits while the country’s discoms, power users, and tax-payers lose.
As solar grows, so will these costs. Will India’s solar sector, then, grow to the extent that discoms and customers can shoulder these loads?
Larger questions
On the whole, India’s solar sector needs a relook.
Between government schemes to boost manufacturing, solar developers diversifying into manufacturing and alternative forms of renewable power, and India’s turn towards protectionism, the sector has seen a lot of change.
Is the senior advisor to the Indian government correct? Is solar now set for quicksilver growth? Is the spike in module prices a temporary blip — or is protectionism creating a long-term trend of high-priced modules? Can discoms absorb 160GW of renewables? Where, essentially, is India’s solar sector headed?
The next two parts of this series will get deeper into these questions.
The floods submerged vast areas of farmland, causing significant damage to crops, though the full extent is still being assessed.
Meghalaya floods kills at least 15, Garo Hills worst hit
At least 15 people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya last week, which shares a border with northern Bangladesh, where at least six people were killed at the same time.
Among the victims in Meghalaya were seven members of a single family who were buried alive in South Garo Hills district, two people whose vehicle was swept away by floodwaters, and a man who was killed by a falling tree, Reuters reported. The floods submerged vast areas of farmland, causing significant damage to crops, though the full extent is still being assessed, the report added.
Reuters also noted that several parts of South Asia have been ravaged by floods during the June-September monsoon season. In early October, at least 244 people, including dozens of children, were killed in landslides and floods in Nepal after two days of incessant rains washed away homes, roads, power plants, and bridges. In August, floods in Bangladesh killed over 70 people and caused an estimated $1.2 billion in damages, according to a study by the think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue, as cited by Reuters.
Deforestation is surging worldwide, warns global assessment
The world lost forest cover equivalent to 9.1 million football fields, or 6.37 million hectares, due to deforestation, according to the 2024 Forest Declaration Assessment, a new report by a group of research organisations. This loss was 45% higher than the target set by over 140 countries to eliminate deforestation by 2030. The report, cited by Down to Earth (DTE), revealed that deforestation has worsened over the past decade.
The report highlighted that primary tropical forests, which are crucial for carbon storage and biodiversity protection, lost 3.7 million hectares in 2023, hindering efforts to protect these forests by 38%.
Moreover, forest degradation—damage without complete destruction—is 10 times worse than deforestation, impacting 62.6 million hectares in 2022. The report analysed global trends, noting that while Brazil has made some progress in reducing deforestation, overall trends remain negative. Bolivia’s deforestation rates continue to rise, and Indonesia has seen a sharp increase, reversing earlier successes in these regions, according to the DTE report.
Storm Milton leave 24 dead in Florida
Hurricane Milton left at least 24 people dead in Florida, CBS News reported, as the storm made landfall on Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane before moving over the Atlantic Ocean. The storm left more than 1.3 million people without power across the state. Florida’s coast continues to be battered by heavy rain, with communities bracing for storm surges and subsequent flooding, according to The New York Times.
Officials stated that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is equipped to meet the immediate needs of those affected by the hurricane. However, President Joe Biden noted that the agency will require additional funds to handle future disasters, NBC News reported. The report also mentioned that Milton brought so much rain to parts of Florida’s Tampa Bay area that it “qualified as a one-in-1,000-year rainfall event.”
The Atlantic pointed out that the back-to-back intense hurricanes followed early predictions of a “monstrous” 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, despite an unexpected lull during the typical peak in late August and early September. The article suggests that this shift indicates our collective understanding of how hurricane seasons unfold is becoming increasingly unreliable.
Rare climate phenomena behind 2016 Pacific Marine heatwave, reveals study
A new study has found that the 2016 southwest Pacific marine heatwave, which spanned over 1.7 million square kilometers, was caused by a “rare” combination of an extreme El Niño event and a strong Madden-Julian Oscillation, Science.org reported.
Scientists used sea surface temperature data, atmospheric reanalysis, and an ocean model to investigate the drivers of the heatwave. They discovered that low wind speeds and high humidity contributed to the “exceptional warming” observed in the region. The researchers noted that “the hazardous ecological impacts of this extreme event underscore the need to improve our understanding of the mechanisms driving marine heatwaves, which could lead to better seasonal predictions.”
Permafrost reduces riverbank erosion by nearly half in Arctic rivers, finds study
The presence of permafrost nearly halves riverbank erosion rates in an Arctic river, according to a new study. Researchers noted that riverbank erosion can release long-stored carbon and “jeopardize” Arctic infrastructure and communities.
By using high-frequency satellite observations, the study found that permafrost—ground that has been frozen for at least two years—reduces erosion rates by 47% along the Koyukuk River in central Alaska. The researchers also used modeling to predict that the “complete thaw of permafrost may lead to a 30-100% increase in the migration rates of Arctic rivers.”
Climate change threatens South Caucasus region, including COP29 host Azerbaijan
Climate change, driven by rising global temperatures, is impacting the South Caucasus region, which includes Armenia, Georgia, and COP29 host Azerbaijan. The two defining features of the region—the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea—are undergoing rapid changes, exposing these countries to new threats they had not previously faced, according to a new study reported by Down to Earth (DTE).
A recent media report quoted an Iranian government official warning that up to a quarter of the Caspian Sea’s water (around which these countries are situated) could dry up within the next 20 years. “Climate change affects the entire region, which includes vast mountain ecosystems and remote coastal zones,” noted a report titled Climate Change and Security in the South Caucasus, published a few years ago.
The report was prepared by the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC), a partnership of five international organizations. It highlights that a ‘climate risk country profile’ of Armenia, prepared by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, warns that “Armenia could experience warming significantly above the global average, with potential warming of 4.7°C by the 2090s compared to the 1986-2005 baseline under the highest emissions pathway (RCP8.5).”
The expected rise in maximum and minimum temperatures poses major threats to human health, livelihoods, and ecosystems, the report adds.
In neighboring Azerbaijan, the host of COP29, the country’s NC3 report noted an increase in temperatures of 1.3°C by 2010, relative to the average annual temperatures observed between 1961 and 1990, as outlined in its profile on the EU4Climate portal.
Temperatures in Azerbaijan are projected to rise at a faster rate than the global average, with potential warming of 4.7°C by the 2090s compared to the 1986-2005 baseline under the highest emissions scenario (RCP8.5), the report adds.
The Union Environment Ministry's FAC communicated this decision, paving the way for the construction of road and railway tunnels in forest areas to be treated on par with underground mining projects.
Centre’s panel says digging tunnel for mining under forest land ‘environment friendly activity’
Digging tunnels for mining is considered an “environmentally friendly activity” that causes no damage to trees and vegetation above it and requires no compensatory afforestation, according to the Centre’s Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) in a letter to a state government posted on the Parivesh website, as reported by Hindustan Times. The Union Environment Ministry’s FAC communicated this decision, paving the way for the construction of road and railway tunnels in forest areas to be treated on par with underground mining projects.
The letter sent to the state government states: “No compensatory afforestation is charged in respect of underground mining proposals, as these proposals involve no damage to the above-ground vegetation and wildlife. Therefore, in line with past clarifications issued by the Ministry and directions contained in the Honorable Supreme Court order, the Ministry may consider clarifying that the construction of road and railway tunnels in forest areas may be treated on par with underground mining projects for the purpose of applicability of compensatory afforestation.”
EU carbon tax on imports ‘stifling’ says India
Financial Times reported that India has called the EU’s planned carbon tax on imports an arbitrary “trade barrier,” quoting Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who added that it will “hurt” the world’s fastest-growing large economy and other industrializing nations. According to the report, the minister stated that the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which will impose tariffs on imports starting in 2026, will impede developing countries’ transition away from fossil fuels by making the change harder to fund.
Speaking at the Financial Times Energy Transition Summit in New Delhi, she said: “They are unilateral and are not helpful. Absolutely, it is a trade barrier. You are being stifled by steps that are not going to facilitate the green transition,” the report noted.
Hydropower project in Kedarnath seeks fresh clearances after 2013 Uttarakhand flood damage
The 76 MW Phata Byung hydropower project on the Mandakini River, which was severely damaged during the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, is now up for fresh approvals, including forest and wildlife clearances. The project is located in a dense vegetation area, and the Ministry of Environment has stated that several studies are required. These include assessments of baseline species diversity, seismology, geology, disaster management, and sociocultural impacts, as revealed by a site visit conducted in June, according to a report by The Indian Express.
This is the first hydropower dam located downstream of Kedarnath and will draw water from the Mandakini River, a tributary of the Alaknanda, one of the headwaters of the Ganga. The project sustained extensive damage during the 2013 floods, which were triggered by a cloudburst and a subsequent glacial lake outburst. The dam structure was compromised, the reservoir area filled with debris, and machinery was washed away. A government panel found 24 glacial lakes near the dam site, making the project vulnerable to future glacial lake outburst floods.
India plans to construct a million rainwater harvesting structures before next monsoon
India plans to build one million rainwater harvesting structures, including check dams, percolation tanks, and recharge wells, to enhance groundwater replenishment across the country before the onset of next year’s monsoon, *Times of India* (TOI) reported.
The Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari (JSJB) initiative extends the existing “Catch the Rain – Where it Falls, When it Falls” campaign, which was launched in 1,592 blocks across 256 water-stressed districts in the country in 2019, the report added. The decision was made following the initial success of the initiative in Gujarat, where JSJB was launched in Surat last month. Under the initiative, each district is tasked with building at least five recharge structures in every village to store rainwater, and every municipal corporation is requested to establish a minimum of 10,000 recharge structures within its jurisdiction.
Gujarat is expected to commit to constructing 80,000 rainwater harvesting structures before next year’s monsoon. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar are also anticipated to announce similar commitments, the report said.
UN approves Mandatory safeguards to protect climate and rights from carbon credits
The UN’s new carbon market will have a compulsory mechanism that aims to prevent developers of projects from breaching human rights or causing environmental damage with their activities. Projects under the UN’s new Article 6.4 carbon crediting system will be required to identify and address potential negative environmental and social impacts as part of a detailed risk assessment under new rules adopted by technical experts in Baku, Azerbaijan, Climate Home reported.
The outlet pointed out that the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – the earlier UN carbon market set up to help richer countries meet their emissions-cutting pledges – was dogged by accusations of social and environmental abuses linked to its registered projects, including toxic pollution from a waste-to-energy facility in India, forced relocations due to infrastructure like a hydropower dam in Panama, and villagers in Uganda being denied access to land they used to grow food as a result of a tree-planting project.
The government deployed 498 anti-smog guns at large construction sites, following a proportional distribution strategy based on the size of the sites.
Vehicles, industry, dust, and biomass burning top pollution sources for toxic Delhi air
A Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) report stated that vehicles, industrial emissions, dust from roads and construction, and smoke from biomass burning continue to contribute to air pollution in Delhi during the winter months over the last decade. The report noted fluctuations in pollution levels in Delhi between 2014 and 2024.
As of September 19, the city recorded 96 days this year where air quality was classified as poor, very poor, or severe, according to Economic Times (ET), citing DPCC data. In comparison, there were 159 such days in 2023, 200 in 2022, 168 in 2021, 139 in 2020, 183 in 2019, 206 in 2018, 211 in 2017, and 243 in 2016, highlighting the variations in air quality over the years.
The government deployed 498 anti-smog guns at large construction sites, following a proportional distribution strategy based on the size of the sites, the report stated. According to the Central Air Quality Management (CAQM) Policy, construction sites of up to 5,000-10,000 square meters will have one anti-smog gun, while sites exceeding 20,000 square meters will have four guns installed, as reported by ET.
The report also mentioned that key initiatives in the strategy include enhanced monitoring of air quality at 40 locations across the city and tracking eight critical ambient air quality parameters.
IIT Delhi Study: Low-Cost Sensors and Garbage Management Cut PM2.5 Levels by 26.6%
Using low-cost sensors to monitor pollution and implementing effective garbage management practices—such as stopping incidents of trash burning and preventing dust pollution by fixing damaged roads and footpaths—led to a drop of up to 26.6% in PM2.5 levels in the areas of Delhi’s Jahangirpuri, Rohini (15.7%), and Karol Bagh (15.3%), according to a study by IIT Delhi (IIT-D).
The study from IIT-D’s Centre for Atmospheric Sciences found that pollution levels could be significantly reduced if data-driven strategies are deployed to effectively combat air pollution.
The report stated that monitoring should be expanded nationwide, using hybrid techniques to accurately measure pollution levels and assess the impact of local interventions. This scalable model could provide valuable insights for improving air quality in other regions across the country, Economic Times reported.
Despite rise in coal plants, data shows decline in mercury pollution from human activity
A new study has found “mismatch” while studying data of mercury pollution (a potent neurotoxin emitted by coal plants and small-scale gold mining) in the atmosphere: mercury pollution by human activity decreased, but mercury inventory increased during the same period.
Scientists said modeling mercury emissions is tricky: it’s the only metal that is in liquid form at room temperature, so it has unique properties, the MIT reported. It added that mercury that has been removed from the atmosphere by sinks like the ocean or land can be re-emitted later, making it hard to identify primary emission sources.
The researchers said new results could help inform scientists to evaluate pollution models and develop a more in-depth understanding of what drives global atmospheric concentrations of mercury. The researchers analysed measurements from all available monitoring stations in the Northern Hemisphere and found that atmospheric concentrations of mercury declined by about 10% between 2005 and 2020, but global inventories, on the other hand, have reported opposite trends.
At the current pace, the world is projected to deliver only half of the required growth in renewable power by 2030.
First official global review: World likely to miss 2030 target of tripling RE capacity by 30%
The first official global review has found that the world is “at risk of missing” the target of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, despite record growth last year, according to IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera, who spoke at a pre-COP meeting in Baku. At the current pace, the world is projected to deliver only half of the required growth in renewable power by 2030, based on an assessment by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Climate Home News reported.
The outlet noted that except for solar power, planned capacity additions for other renewable technologies are below the levels needed to meet the target of tripling renewables to 11.2 terawatts by 2030, with a likely shortfall of 34%. While a “record” 473 gigawatts of renewable power capacity was added globally in 2023, the growth rate remains insufficient, as it needs to increase to 16.4% annually to meet the 2030 target, IRENA’s report stated.
India added over 11 GW of solar modules and 2GW of cell manufacturing capacity in 2024 first half: Study
India manufactured 11.3 gigawatt (GW) of solar modules and 2-GW of solar cell capacity in the first six months of 2024, a Mercom study stated. Manufacturing was driven by strong demand, with 132.7 GW of solar in the pipeline between 2024 and 2026 and the reimposition of the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) order from April 2024, the report said.
The country’s cumulative solar module manufacturing capacity reached 77.2 GW, and solar cell manufacturing capacity totaled 7.6 GW as of June 2024, the study said, adding that 51 GW of module capacity across various technologies and wattages had received ALMM certification at the end of June 2024.
India must increase wind energy capacity by 22% annually to meet its 122 GW by 2031 target
Latest analyses by Ember stated that India needs to “ramp up wind energy deployment by 22% annually” to meet its target of generating 122 GW of wind power by 2032, ET reported.
The report found that 21 Indian states have set targets to contract over 100 GW of wind capacity by 2030 to meet renewable purchase obligations and diversify their renewable energy portfolios.
The newspaper said even states with limited wind potential, such as Odisha, Jharkhand, Punjab, and Bihar, are expected to contribute by importing surplus wind power from wind-rich states. “Wind energy’s complementarity with solar is crucial to addressing India’s increasing clean energy needs during non-solar hours,” said Ruchita Shah, Electricity Policy Analyst, Ember.
Rooftop solar may increase daytime temperatures in cities by up to 1.5°C: Study
Rooftop PV solar has “unintended” impacts on temperatures in urban environments. Rooftop arrays, for example, may potentially raise daytime temperatures in urban environments by up to 1.5°C and lower nighttime temperatures by up to 0.6 °C, new research from India showed, according to PV Magazine report.
The outlet added that an international group of scientists created a new model that utilises the latest weather research and forecasting (WRF) model, integrating the building energy model (BEM) and the building effect parameterisation (BEP) into it. The model was validated against 10 observation stations in Kolkata, India, using experimentally validated models, the report said.
BYD will focus on importing read-made cars, despite the significantly higher costs due to Customs duty.
BYD won’t set up manufacturing facility in India, will only import
Chinese carmaker BYD has decided against setting up a manufacturing facility in India altogether after the Indian government did not allow the company to set up a manufacturing facility in the country, reported The Economic Times. It will focus on importing read-made cars, despite the significantly higher costs due to Customs duty. As of now, BYD only offers three models in India. On the other hand, the world’s second largest EV maker has grown into 12 markets in Africa.
Ola Electric faces music after complaints about servicing and faulty product reach 80,000 a month
Ola Electric, India’s dominant e-scooter manufacturer, finds itself in hot water after being handed a show cause notice by The Central Consumer Protection Authority for alleged violation of consumer rights, misleading advertisement and unfair trade practices, reported The Hindu. This comes after months of service backlogs, which went up to 80,000 complaints a month, reported Mint. While Ola is scrambling to expand its service capacity, customers have raised questions about the quality of the electric scooter itself.
Tesla’s driverless cab doesn’t impress investors, wipes out $60 billion in stocks
Elon Musk’s much-touted new product, the driverless vehicle named ‘Cybercab’, did not live up to its hype, reported The Guardian. It created such a dull impression on investors that Tesla’s stock fell by 12%, dropping the EV maker’s value by $60 billion. Investors were dissuaded by the lack of details about the upcoming product and timelines.
EV sales slowdown forces Northvolt’s subsidiary to file for bankruptcy
Europe’s biggest battery maker Northvolt has not been having a good year. Following BMW’s withdrawal of a $1 billion order due to sales slowdown, it was forced to stop the expansion of an upcoming 30 GWh manufacturing plant at Skellefteå, Sweden. Northvolt Ett Expansion, a development company, which was managing the expansion, filed for bankruptcy, reported Sifted.
Upcoming CCS startup Paebbl secures $25 million funding
Nordic-Dutch startup Paebbl, which has come up with a technology to turn captured CO2 into construction material, has secured $25 million funding in series A round, reported Sifted. Investors include VC Capnamic and Amazon’s The Climate Pledge Fund. Paebbl will use this investment to set up a demonstration plant by next year, and increase production to 3 tonnes per day, sequestering up to one tonne of CO2.
38% of the bids submitted in Round 9 of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) fall into this recently established "no-go" category.
India clears 1 million sq km cleared for oil exploration in ‘no-go’ area
Petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced at an event that 1 million square kilometres of India’s 3.5 million square kilometres of sedimentary basin have been made available for oil and gas development. This represents a substantial chunk of the basin that was previously designated as a “no-go” area. According to the Economic Times, 38% of the bids submitted in Round 9 of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) fall into this recently established “no-go” category. There are plans to hold a tenth round of bidding. Puri emphasised India’s attempts to draw in foreign investors. “We are making it easier,” he declared. Not even an initial investment is required and that the government will pay the businesses to help with seismic surveys. According to the report, this represented a substantial change towards a more adaptable, investor-friendly strategy.
UK releases £22 billion in subsidy for carbon capture projects after increased lobbying efforts
According to a report by the Guardian, the UK government’s move to provide £22 billion in subsidies to carbon capture projects was preceded by increased lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry. As per the official transparency records, major oil and gas companies like BP, ExxonMobil, and Equinor attended 24 out of 44 external ministerial meetings in 2023 to discuss carbon capture and storage (CCS). This is a significant increase, given that during 2020–22, oil and gas corporations would typically attend seven to ten of these sessions annually. UK’s policy builds upon the plans of the previous Conservative government to create four CCS “clusters,” wherein part of the CO2 released by fossil fuel-burning enterprises and power stations would be captured through carbon capture. Subterranean pipelines would subsequently transport the extracted gas to exhausted oil and gas reservoirs beneath the North and Irish Seas for storage.
BP to drop planned cut in oil production
In an effort to narrow the difference in value with competitors in the energy sector, BP is going to abandon an ambitious goal of reducing its production of oil and gas by the end of the decade, the Times reported. In 2020, the oil business set a target to increase spending on renewable energy and decrease its output of oil and gas by 40% by 2030. Following a sharp increase in commodity prices in February of last year, the goal was first lowered to a 25% reduction in production from 2019 levels, meaning the corporation would only be producing roughly two two million barrels a day. Now, the company is planning to formally abandon the target, the report added.
Funding for fossil fuel-prolonging projects increases by almost 350%: Study
According to a new study by the Clean Air Fund, foreign funding for fossil fuel projects increased almost by 350% in 2022, from $1.2 billion in 2021 to $5.4 billion. The study found that the Islamic Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and International Finance Corporation—the World Bank’s private sector arm—were the top five donors of fossil fuel projects between 2018 and 2022.
