The Ministry of Finance’s Department of Investment and Public Asset Management has invited bids from book-running lead managers (BRLMs) to help list the government’s equity in the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA). The government will choose up to three merchant bankers with experience in public offerings to form the BRLMs. The last day to submit the bids is April 28, 2023. Bids will be opened on May 1, 2023. The approval was granted due to the recent change in capital structure in IREDA following the infusion of ₹15 billion (~$181.75 million) by the government early last year.

The renewable landscape is rapidly changing from the traditional development of standalone solar and wind projects to a combination of both in hybrid projects, primarily driven by the urgent need for round-the-clock (RTC) supply and to tide over the intermittency of renewable resources. The current and future trends in renewable energy were one of the topics industry experts discussed on Day 1 at the ‘Mercom India Renewables Summit 2023,’ an exclusive event being held on April 26-27 in New Delhi. While stakeholders are exploring commercially viable energy storage solutions, hybrid projects are already addressing the challenge of variable supply and grid safety to some extent.

Green hydrogen company Ohmium International announced the close of a $250 million Series C growth equity financing. The funding will be used to expand Ohmium’s annual electrolyzer manufacturing capacity to 2 GW. The company said the additional capital would enable Ohmium to scale its business and accelerate the research and development programs to reduce the cost of green hydrogen production. The funds will also be directed to deploy projects for the company’s global customer pipeline in key regions, including the United States, Europe, India, and the Middle East.

China installed 33.6 GW of solar capacity in the first quarter of 2023, marking a decrease of 3% quarter-over-quarter, according to the National Energy Administration. The country’s cumulative solar installations touched 430 GW during the quarter, an increase of nearly 33.7% year-on-year (YoY). Investments in solar increased by 177.6% YoY, with RMB52.2 billion (~$7.54 billion). The installed capacity of wind power also went up to 380 GW, an increase of 11.7% YoY. China’s total installed power capacity stood at 2.62 TW at the end of the quarter, a YoY increase of 9.1%.

MinionLabs, an energy efficiency, and IOT (internet of things) company, emerged as the winner of Mercom’s First Startup Pitch Competition for Cleantech Companies. The award was presented to the company during the Mercom India Renewables Summit — a flagship annual event where industry leaders converge to discuss the future of clean energy in India. The company’s advanced machine learning and AI-based edge computing approach detects the energy consumption of individual electrical assets and provides real-time analysis through its Minion Analytics/SaaS platform.

Over 10 million electric cars were sold globally in 2022, and the sales are anticipated to increase by 35% this year, reaching a total of 14 million, finds a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The report finds that this year, there will be another record-breaking surge in global sales of electric cars, resulting in a larger share of the overall car market. This growth has led to an increase in the electric cars’ market share from about 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022, and it is expected to rise to 18% this year, according to the IEA projections.