Interviews

The RE sector has grown at over 10 per cent per annum over the last two years, driven majorly by the wind sector accounting for 4,300 MW new installations, followed by solar installations of around 1,900 MW in the same period.

There is low capital being infused and solar projects have large capital requirements. We are competing with China, where the smallest capacity is 1 GW and every player has at least 3-5 GW installed. But, we can only compete with them if the government gives us similar kinds of incentives.

From our perspective as a solar panel manufacturer, there are challenges regarding Indian made solar cells. Firstly, cells manufactured in India are 15-20 per cent costlier and less efficient as compared to imported ones. Secondly, there are supply constraints fon account of limited manufacturing capacities.

The industry is making concerted efforts in the area of skill development. Recently, IEEMA conductor division has deliberated on the possibilities of a training centre in Silvassa. PARFI´s (PanIIT Alumni Reach in India) model for upgrading skill for the proposed training centre was discussed.

For it to be truly attractive to ´Make in India´, power quality and energy efficiency should be deeply ingrained into our manufacturing. There remains a lot of scope in the field of reactive power compensation, power quality

The demand for capacitors has definitely gone up in the last few years, partly because of a push from utility companies to charge on KVA consumed. We have also seen a lot of smaller businesses

I concur that the overall generation in the country has increased from 967.150 BU during 2013-14 to 1,048.673 BU during 2014-15. It can also be noted that, the thermal power sector has achieved a maximum growth rate of 10.83 per cent, which is the highest in a single year since 2008-09. Another important matrix to take into consideration is that India has witnessed lowest ever reduction of power deficit of 3.6 per cent during 2014-15.

Primarily, as an industry player, I seek reforms in the transmission and distribution sectors. If we bring down the current T&D losses, which stands at 26 per cent, by around 10 per cent, we can save Rs 3 lakh crore worth of power.

We all know that power is the most important and basic aspect of any industry, and that power in India is in shortage and of poor quality, unless we improve upon this we can´t expect investment. Though there has been a lot of improvement in the power situation, we are yet to see any significant impact in terms of growth in investment and business due to all this.