Sunny days ahead for solar power

Sanjeev Aggarwal, Managing Director and CEO, Amplus Energy Solutions Pvt Ltd Comment on the policy support from the central/ state governments for solar power.
Both the state and central governments have created a very positive environment through various subsidies such as waivers on interstate transmission and, banking and wheeling charges for solar projects.  We are grateful to the authorities for these and hope that the support continues in future also.

Could you elaborate on the latest technology in solar and how easy it is to adapt to Indian climatic conditions?
Even though India is a tropical country, with a good amount of irradiation and over 300 sunny days, we still face a huge demand-supply deficit. While technological evolution has largely reduced the cost of solar power we are still not able to provide s electricity to the underserved sections of our society Therefore it is important to address the storage issue of solar power. Amplus is striving to address this unique challenge in distributed solar power. The company, apart from distributed rooftop solar, has also forayed into Battery based Energy Storage Solutions that will provide power when needed rather then when it is generated. The opportunity for the company's overall business (including all its product offerings in distributed solar) is huge given the solar mission of Government of India to achieve 100 GW cumulative Solar Capacity by 2022.

Technology has brought cost effectiveness in solar power. However, the prices of equipment are going up and the tariff-reducing. Comment
Falling project costs have driven tariffs lower and recent increase in the module costs is yet to manifest itself in terms of tariff since there have been no major bids in the recent past. . It would, therefore, be interesting to see how the bidders behave in the upcoming bids in the backdrop of increasing equipment costs. Probably, with this upwards blip in the module prices, the bidders will be much more careful not to bid on razor thin margins.

What is your take on the more efficient products available in the Indian market?
As tariffs fall developers will look at technological improvements that either enhance yield or lower maintenance costs. Any such improvements would be acceptable provided the cost benefits stack up.

Is aggressive capacity additions target set by the government achievable?
To achieve this target, the policymakers and off takers need to ensure a steady pipeline of projects besides continuously maintaining a positive environment. There is enough private capital available to o solar sector provided the risk reward remains balanced. India has the potential to achieve and surpass the 100GW target of the government. In particular, the government needs to encourage rooftop sector as the target of adding 40,000 MW in rooftop is far lagging behind as compared to the grid scale projects.