Interviews

Predominantly today, the solar industry is ruled by capital costs and the impact directly comes from the manufacturing capacity. The problem is that whatever manufacturing we have is either slightly outdated or not big enough to compete on cost.

While NTPC took 10 years to build its first 10,000 MW capacity, 11 years to build the next 10,000 MW, and 7 years to build the third block of 10,000 MW capacity; the last 10,000 MW has been added in a short span of four years.

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.