REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA

CONFERENCE 2015
Minutes of sessions: 29th 30th June 2015

Abstract
Smart Cities Conference hosted by India Infrastructure Publishing. The agenda of the
conference was to increase awareness and promote the use of renewable source of
electricity by sharing views of regulators, developers, manufacturers on challenges
related to tariff bidding, capital cost of solar PV, investment risks and the demand
supply gap.

Solar Power in India:

New Targets, Great Opportunities and Potential Challenges

The Government of India has set a target of 100GW of installed solar power capacity by 2022; where in
60GW will be large and medium scale grid connected and 40GW will be rooftop. The solar power
segment has grown at the rate of more than 300% in the past 5 years, with about 3.7GW of capacity
being added till the end of 2014-15. Solar tariffs have reduced from about INR 12.5 per unit in 2010-11
to about INR 5.5 per unit in 2014-15.

1st Day of the Conference

KEY TRENDS AND OUTLOOK
Speaker: Anish De, Head of Strategy & Operations, KPMG

This session focused on the major trends that have emerged in the solar power segment, key business
drivers with regard to solar power, key risks and challenges and how they can be mitigated.

The lead acid battery has survived around 100 years and will survive another 10 years only, but after
those 10 years nobody would even be aware of what lead acid battery was, revolution to the energy
storage solution industry is progressing at a very rapid pace.

A policy push through incentives such as accelerated depreciation and concession duty is required,
also a quick roll-out of the Green Energy Corridors project and development of domestic
manufacturing needs to be uplifted which will be supported by the Make in India initiative.
A supportive regulatory environment is needed in the form of exemption from wheeling charges,
cross subsidy surcharge, etc. The CERC is also working on other market structures in the context of
forecasting and scheduling and ancillary operations.
Increased interest and innovations from the private sector is another driving factor.

The key challenges that need to be addressed relate to land availability, innovation in financing, grid
integration, skill development and R&D.
For future outlook, solar parks will act as vehicles to promote large-scale private investment.
On the solar rooftop front, a rapid roll-out along with a lot of innovation and standard engineering
can be looked at.
Given the potential market size, a scale up in the solar manufacturing space is expected.

INAUGRAL ADDRESS
Speaker: Piyush Goyal, Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy in the
Government of India.

The Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy focused
on the promoting the renewable sector for power generation. He was open for suggestions from
developers for improving policy formation, wanted to get the outcome of conference to help ease the
use of renewable power from the governments end.

Since the Cabinet of Ministers has approved of the target of setting up the solar power installed
capacity of 100GW by 2022, the minister wanted to achieve this ambitious target by 2020 & was

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

positive on achieving that seeing the technology adoption rate and state governments aggressive
measures to drop dependency on conventional sources of energy.
The Minister invited international companies and developers to come and invest/deploy their
technology; to help India achieve its target thereby increasing their profits and geographical
presence.

To achieve the solar power target, renewable energy equipment and power tariffs set by discoms
should be affordable and within the reach of every consumer. Flexible financing options with low
interest rate for renewable power are being introduced in order to promote discoms activity of
transmitting renewable energy.

Transmission being the major enabler for promoting use of renewable source of energy, several
green energy corridors are being set up with an investment of $6 billion. This will help majorly in
ensuring low cost transmission and will be a provision for the whole country for renewable power.
Several states have brought in regulations to also make the intra state power transmission to be
free of any additional cost & the Minister advised other states to adopt the same method as well.

Another strong arm of this project would be promoting the setting up of manufacturing units in
India, under the Make in India programme, which will provide various benefits like income tax
redemption, incentives in terms of electricity consumption.

Challenge and threat to this programme would be getting a very high power tariff for renewable
energy, at initial the government is planning to hand hold the domestic manufacturers. The
government is also trying to support PSUs which are committed to set up the first 10,000 MW
amongst the whole programme.

Transmission losses are also a very big risk for this programme, along with this, affordability of
technology and tariffs are also be kept in mind.

DEVELOPERS PERSPECTIVE
Speaker: Sunil Jain, CEO, Hero Future Energies
Speaker: Vineet Mittal, Co-Founder and MD, Welspun Energy
Speaker: Shivanand Nimbargi, MD & CEO, Sembcorp Green Infra

This session targeted the key players for the Indian solar market, their investment plans and strategies
to meet the future demand and their expectations from the government and other stakeholders.

While the government is talking about installing 100GW capacity of solar renewable energy, the
major concern of developers was related to pricing and tariffs. In case the pricing is not done
correctly, the whole project will fall and the developers will end up being in huge debt.
The tariffs are calculated by the bids which are placed by the developers. Developers place their
tariff bids for different locations, based on which the government body decides to allot a specific
area to a developer for providing renewable electricity.

With the constant placing of bids, it has been observed that the price for power is falling and that
too by almost 10%. Developers have to be rationale about their bidding, in order to win the bid and
in order to ensure customers trust.

Developers face issues with supply chain model of the companies. The manufacturing companies
are not able to provide enough equipment on the agreed time limit. Companies should focus on
enhancing their supply chain in order to achieve the target of 100GW of installed capacity.

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

Since the size of projects are increasing, developers also face challenges while focusing on
improving the efficiency, optimising the yield, as much as 25% of the power is lost while converting
from DC to AC and also how to improve the Plant Load Factor.
The bidding process should be effective and developers should be targeting at providing cheap
electricity, which can only be possible if the government launches policies and regulations to
support developers.
Where the power tariff for conventional sources goes to INR 3 per unit, the power tariff for
renewable sources such as solar would go near INR 7 per unit. To make solar power acceptable for
consumers, government should focus on development of solar parks and solar connected grid
units.

MANUFACTURERS PERSPECTIVE
Speaker: Rahul Budhwar, Vice-President and Head, Manufacturing, Tata Power Solar Systems India
Speaker: Gyanesh Chaudhary, MD and CEO, Vikram Solar

This session highlighted the manufacturers perspective on the Indian solar power market, their
expectations from the government under the Make in India initiative and issues faced by domestic and
foreign equipment manufacturers.

The manufacturers are keen on scaling up their investments in terms of machinery, manpower,
factories but policy and regulations become a barrier. The manufacturers expect the government
to show them the right signals and promote the policies which removes all the barriers.

For manufacturers, it means more than just setting up a factory, employing manpower and selling
products. It means that all the manpower, custom clearances, raw materials, policies are on time
and proper push is provided by the government to enable the entire delivery process of the end
product at the right time.
The 6 pillars which help manufacturers to progress are:
o Technology
o Scale
o Talent
o Financing
o Infrastructure
o Power Supply
Out of these, Technology, talent & financing are most important ones. In case the technology is
outdated or is not efficient, the manufacturer will suffer, if not at the same time maybe in the
future. Talent includes the skilled manpower who is completely aware of technology and how to
handle all the equipment. Financing as already stated becomes a barrier hindering the progress of
manufacturing industry.

Companies now focusing on Make in India, are keen to invest and manufacture in India as well.
Moreover, the quality of silicon which is available in India provides the best efficiency, as compared
to the silicon which is imported from different parts of the world.

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

One major difference that appears and will appear will be the prices of solar panels and equipment
which are manufactured in China vs. the ones manufactured in India. The reason being that
equipment manufactured in China are priced on the basis of cost of labour, utilities and raw
materials; whereas the ones manufactured in India will be inclusive of labour, utilities, raw
materials, R&D cost, transportation cost etc.

TECHNOLOGY PERSPECTIVE
Speaker: Archit Khemka, Head, Solar, ReGen Powertech
Speaker: K.V. Sajay, Executive Vice President, Solar, Gamesa India

This session invited key insights to be shared by various renewable power technology companies which
manufacture and install their equipment in different locations to optimize power and other demands
of people.

ReGen Powertech, a growing wind energy company from Chennai, has installed their technology in
Rajasthan where they have combined Solar & Wind power as a solution for electricity problem in
the surrounding areas. In cases of cloudy weather, the wind power will provide electricity & in case
of no wind is flowing, the solar power will provide electricity.
Challenge with this type of combined solution was that the huge wind turbine shadows some part
of the surrounding area which makes it difficult for solar PV to be installed. To resolve this, the
ReGen team did shadow analysis of a wind turbine. They found that depending upon region, the
area on the north or south of wind turbine remains shadow free, thereby making it suitable for
solar PV installation.
The ReGen team also did perform a check on Plant Load Factor, they found that PLF increased from
25% to 37% in case of a combined renewable power solution.
Gamesa, a Spanish manufacturing company with its India office in Chennai, focused on Warranty
management & ensuring bankability of solar power.
Manufacturing, selling and installing are not the only phases of the solar energy project,
maintaining and servicing are also important phases to ensure extended life of equipment.
Most often the companies selling and installing solar PV equipment do not provide warranty
management and even after spending huge amount for saving electricity bills by solar power,
customers end up spending the same amount after 3-4 years, due to equipment faliure.
Warranty management ensures that all the devices installed including solar PV, wires, the structure
needed to hold solar PV, all is maintained and on-time service is being done. This ensures extended
life of equipment and also increases efficiency.
New entrants and new companies focus on the model of doing it cheap the first time. This makes
the project in-profitable. The companies should focus on doing it the first time, then doing it cheap.
The main elements that a company should concentrate on their product, workman ship and asset
management, to make any project profitable.

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

COST AND TARIFF TRENDS

Speaker: Dr Satyendra Kumar, Chief Mentor, Solar, Emergent Ventures

This session enlightened the current project economics of solar PV plants, key material and equipment
price trends and likely future tariff trends in the solar power space and when can grid party be
expected.

Assuming that India aims at building 10GW of solar power plants by 2017, what all will be needed:
o 60,000 tons of Polysilicon
o 2.5 billion silicon wafers
o 64 million sq. m. of glass
o 160,000 km of electrical cables
o 500,000 tons of steel structures
With this much of resources needed only for 10GW, almost 10 times of these would be required
for achieving the target of 100GW of installed capacity.
This is an immense opportunity for creating employment, generating wealth and creating new
knowledge.
With the increase in solar PV import from China, the prices have decreased and are cons istently
decreasing which will increase the demand of solar PV in the coming years.
More than half of the cost involved in setting up a solar power plant is of module cost. Module is
the base of solar PV which holds a layer of silicon wafer above it, connected with wires to store the
solar power.
The main challenge for this solar PV project is whether Grid Parity will be achieved or not. Grid
Parity means that the cost of electricity generated from alternative energy is less than or equal to
the purchasing power from the electricity grid. The Government is in process of releasing and
drafting policies to ensure grid parity is met.

2nd Day of the Conference:

SPOTLIGHT ON ROOFTOP & DECENTRALISED SOLAR POWER GENERATION

Speaker: Vinay Rustagi, MD, Bridge to India
Speaker: Onkar Nath, Energy Portfolio, GIZ India

This session focused on the potential of solar rooftop market, status of ongoing rooftop programmes,
current size of decentralised solar power market. If any government initiatives and subsidy
programmes are present.

Indias total installed solar capacity is 4GW and Rajasthan, Gujarat & Madhya Pradesh are the top
three states with the most installed capacity of solar power plants.
The government has been making attempts to tackle challenges with introducing various acts &
certificates like:
o Renewable Energy Act 2015: comprehensive sector-wise framework for investment
o Amendments in Electricity Act: cross subsidy surcharge waived; introduction of RGO;
increase in solar RPO from 3% to 10.5%
o Renewable Energy Certificates: Solar REC prices rationalised and reduced by 60%, vintage
multipliers introduced

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

o State solar policies: New draft state policy being proposed, new solar policies announced by
Rajasthan, Karnataka, AP & Telangana.
o Financing: cheap financing lines being sought from international institutions; domestic
banks encouraged to lend to the sector

The current status of Indian rooftop solar is still infancy and so far has been driven by pilot
initiatives and capital subsidies. Current total market size of rooftop solar is 285MW with 97MW
being commercially installed, 76MW being industrial installations and 112MW being residential
installations.
In the near future a greater thrust is expected in the coming months with provisions like:
o Mandatory installations, amendments in urban planning rules
o Enforcement of RPO framework
o 15% subsidy for select customers
o Effective implementation of net metering policies
The drivers for solar rooftop market include:
o Attractive financial case
o Reliable power supply

The challenges for solar rooftop market include:

o High upfront cost, long payback or contract commitment period
o Availability of rooftop space
o Lack of grid connection standards and functional net metering policies
o Lack of standard solutions, knowledge about solar solutions

Grid parity and financial support can drive substantial growth of solar rooftops in India. The
industrial segment is expected to take the lead due to the sheer volume of industrial consumption
and availability of roof space.

ROLE OF SOLAR PARKS

Speaker: Dr Ashvini Kumar, MD (Solar), Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI)

In this session the speaker spoke of current status of schemes and initiatives like solar parks.
Challenges being faced and what are plans to address the same.

The solar power project is aimed at 100GW of installed capacity, which is not an easy target to
achieve. A lot of other solar plants are to be set up to meet this target. Challenges encountered in
this project are:
o Land related: large area, land use, permissions etc.
o Access for power evacuation: connectivity, right of way, load demand etc.
o Requirement of ancillary services: water, auxiliary power, communication systems etc.
o Lack of eco system for construction and O&M of plants: manufacturers, service providers
o Security issues: remote locations of plants will have security concerns.
This is where the concept of solar parks comes into picture. A solar park is a large area identified
and developed for setting up solar projects with integrated common facilities, typicall y in the order
of 500-1000MW.

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

Advantages of Solar parks:

o Enabling environment for developers
o Quick turnaround time for projects
o Common infrastructure and support services
o Shared development costs
o Lesser losses in evacuation
o Establish local manufacturing and support facilities
o Local employment generation
Under the solar park scheme, development of 25 solar parks/ Ultra Mega Solar Power Plants for
setting up of a cumulative capacity of 20,000MW throughout the country. This will happen in the
next 5 years. The Central government is providing financial assistance of INR 40 billion at INR 2
million per MW or 30% of the project cost (whichever is lower).
Facilities proposed in the solar parks are:
o Road connectivity within the park
o Telecommunication facilities
o Water availability for construction as well as running of power plants
o Internal drainage
o Construction power
o Office building etc.
o Parking, warehouses etc.
Land acquisition for these solar parks will be done by the state government, unless implementing
agency has its own land. The solar parks will have 5 acres per MW towards installation of solar
projects. State Government will prioritize the use of government waste/ non-agricultural land in
order to speed up the acquisition. The price of land will be kept as low as possible to attract
developers.
The power evacuation procedure consists of two parts: Pooling substations & Electrical network
within the park to collect power from each park & transmitting it to the transmission sub-station at
the park boundary Transmission sub-station along with transmission line up to Central
Transmission Utility (CTU)

FOCUS ON STORAGE SOLUTIONS

Speaker: Dr Rahul Walawalkar, Executive Director, Indian Energy Storage Alliance

This session focused on the economics of storage solutions for solar power technologies, various types
of technologies, their comparative advantages and disadvantages.

Energy storage components are very important while working on the project with aiming to
achieve 100GW of installed solar power capacity. In order to store power, keeping in mind the
importance of power backup solutions which play a key role in the power industry.
There is significant opportunity for thermal as well as electrochemical storage. It has been
observed over the globe that thermal energy storage solution is growing at a much larger rate, in
the same the electrochemical energy storage solutions are also picking up.
Energy storage technologies include range of technologies like Lead acid batteries, sodium based
batteries, Lithium ion, flow batteries which include Zn-Cl, Zn-Ar, Zn-Br etc.

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

In India each year $4 billion are spent on lead acid batteries, out of which almost half of the
amount is spent on UPS and stationary applications.
While consumers use lead acid batteries only occasionally, if the lead acid battery was being used
24 hours, then the lead acid battery wont last more than 18 months and no one will buy the lead
acid battery. To prevent this, the companies have started manufacturing Advanced lead acid
battery in which they add carbon. They are also creating hybrid solutions by combining lead acid
batteries and ultra capacitors which can provide double the life of traditional lead acid battery,
which gives almost 1200-2000 cycles, thereby increasing the price by 10 - 30%.
Another prominent selling battery technology is sodium sulphur. Japan based company, NGK has
licensing of this type of battery and they have more than 350GW of sodium sulphur batteries
deployed across the world. This type of battery looks 6-7hrs of storage & this type of battery can
last around 5000-6000 cycles.
If we talk of single Lithium ion technology, within Lithium ion probably 15 different combinations of
technologies which have different combinations of anode and cathode. Most of the common
Lithium ion technologies are Lithium ion phosphate, Lithium cobalt manganese, Lithium titanate or
Lithium nickel manganese which are differently focused on energy vs. power and safety.

Many prominent players have entered the market with their lithium ion batteries with Tesla being
the latest one. This type of battery also lasts for 2000 cycles and these have efficiency of greater
than 90%.

Challenges include the initial capital cost of lithium ion batteries which is almost 3 - 4 times higher
as compared to lead acid batteries, but this cost is also coming down with the recent Teslas price
statement.
Next comes up the flow battery technology which is fundamentally different in terms of lead acid
battery or lithium ion battery. In this the electrolyte which is stored in a tank decides the amount
of energy, whereas the surface area of membrane decides the power rating of the technology.
The flow battery technology lasts for almost 5000-6000 cycles but only with 60% efficiency.
Working with solar power, 60% of efficiency would not work.
While working with energy storage performance metrics to be looked on include:
o Capital cost ($/kWh)
o Cycle life
o Roundtrip Energy Efficiency
o Space footprint
Reliance Jio, the telecom giant has purchased more than $300 million dollar of Lithi um ion
batteries for its telecom towers.

OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCES AND BEST PRACTICES

Speaker: Vikalp Mundra, Joint Managing Director, Ujaas Energy
Speaker: Puneet Jaggi, Director, Solarig Gensol Utilities

This session highlighted the experience in terms of operational and technical performance of solar
power projects, lessons that can be learnt from projects and the O&M related challenges.

Ujaas Energy is an O&M company which offers various field services like:
o Solar Resource Assessment
o Real Time Active Performance monitoring

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

o
o
o
o

Condition based monitoring

Advance analytics
Reporting
Forecasting

Under the umbrella of IT based services which Ujaas Energy offers are:
o IT enabled services to help drive growth, enhance revenue and increase efficiency
o Software with cloud capabilities, built on open standards and mobile solutions to increase
its power generation capacity
o The system is meant to help the company manage, and effectively use the vase amount of
data generated by power generation sources
o The data analytics capabilities helps to gather valuable insights from the data generated to
take pro-active measures
o Using the system of mobile technology the company will be able to provide all the
information, analysed on cloud platform, to their staff on ground on their handsets and will
alert them in advance which will ensure to build smarter operations
o IR imaging to check if there is any fault in the equipment, that fault is notified to their staff
on the ground, which prevents any problems for the equipment.
Solarig Gensol Utilites is an O&M company which shared valuable insights on why O&M is needed
for solar and what should the customer expect from an O&M company.
o More manpower does not equal better operation: This meaning that if on a particular solar
plant site, the O&M company employs extra manpower than required that will not ensure
un-disturbed activity on the site.
o O&M is not just about cleaning: Many customers think that O&M company only cleans the
solar PV panels and nothing else. O&M is more than cleaning, it is about maintaining the
solar PV panels and taking necessary steps to ensure optimum efficiency.
o O&M partner is not insurance company: Customers also assume that once they have
appointed an O&M company, it will take care of the equipment installed and will replace
the equipment in case of any failure/ breakage. The O&M company will only take care of
the equipment.

<End of report>

REPORT ON SOLAR POWER IN INDIA CONFERENCE 2015

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