Solar PV in India - About to Explode?

India officially launched a national solar mission in January 2010. This ambitious program is expected to provide great incentives to encourage large-scale investments for solar energy production. The goal of this mission is to increase the installed capacity of solar energy for power generation from just 2 MW to 20,000 MW [20 GW] by 2022.

National Solar Mission Highlights

20 GW by 2022

The goal set in the mission is to achieve 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022.

Aim to achieve manners in stages

Increase grid-connected solar power capacity to 1000 MW within 3 years-until 2013. Additional 3000 MW will be added by 2017 due to the forced use of renewable purchase obligations by utilities backed by preferential tariffs. This capacity can more than double, reaching 10,000 MW of installed power by 2017, based on enhanced and validated international finance and technology transfer. More than 20,000 MW, 2022's ambitious goal depends on “learning”. Of the first two phases, success can lead to grid-competitive solar power conditions. The transition may be expanded appropriately based on international financial and technology availability.

Focus on manufacturing solar power and thermal equipment

Create favorable conditions for solar manufacturing capacity, especially for indigenous production and market leadership. Currently, the majority of the Indian photovoltaic industry relies on imports of important raw materials and components, including silicon wafers. Turning India into a solar energy hub involves a leadership role in producing low-cost, high-quality solar cells, including a balance of system components. In order to promote PV production plants, including domestic production of silicon materials, a positive implementation of special incentive package [SIP] policies is required. One of the mission objectives is to serve as a global leader in solar manufacturing [over the entire value chain] with state-of-the-art solar technology, including setting up dedicated manufacturing capacity for polysilicon 4-5 Targeting the installed capacity of GW. A material for making a capacity of about 2 GW of solar cells every year. India already has about 700 MW of PV module production capacity and is expected to increase over the next few years. Indigenous people's current capacity to produce silicon materials is very low, but some factories are likely to be installed soon in the public and private sectors. Currently there are no capacities / capacities specific to solar power projects. Therefore, new facilities for manufacturing concentrator collectors, receivers, and other components are needed to meet the demand of solar power plants.

In order to meet the installed capacity goals for photovoltaic and CSP component manufacturing, the mission recommends local demand creation, financing and special incentives for photovoltaic and CSP manufacturing.

Demand and incentives-key drivers

The government believes that two major factors—government incentives and increased demand—can effectively promote solar power.

The mission believes that one of the key factors is due to the renewable purchase obligation [RPO] mandated by utilities with specific solar components. This facilitates utility-scale power generation, both solar and solar.

The mission also focuses on providing solar lighting systems covering approximately 10,000 villages and villages under the ongoing MNRE remote village electrification program. The use of solar lights for lighting purposes is facilitated by villages without access to grid power, and most of these villages are remote tribal communities, providing a 90% subsidy. Subsidies and the demands so generated can be leveraged to achieve specificization as well as price reductions due to scale effects. In other villages connected to the grid, solar is promoted in market mode by allowing banks to offer low-cost credits.

The government refers to incentives for both photovoltaic and solar heat. For example, in the case of solar heat, the mission statement states: “The first two-phase missions use already proven technology to promote a commercially viable solar heating system. Household and industrial applications below 80 ° C will be solarized "

However, the main driver of solar heat is expected to be in the context of heating applications. This means that the mission will significantly enhance solar power generation for the top priority of the plan.

How do Indian industries and companies react to this ambitious plan? Will this make a large-scale investment from the private sector to solar power generation?

To date, there has been little real investment commitment from the Indian private sector, but the number of companies that have developed plans and memorandums of understanding with various state governments is very important to respond to this plan from the Indian private sector. It shows that there is. Given the fact that the cost of solar power [capital cost] is expected to decrease significantly over the next five years and that the cost of power generation from coal is expected to increase, solar-based power generation is becoming increasingly attractive Become. business chance.

In addition, the cost of capital for solar power plants has returned from about $ 5 million per MW in about three years to now about $ 3 million per MW. That is a 60% reduction in just about 3 years. Expect significant cost savings over the next few years. If cost savings projections prove to be accurate in practice, the cost of photovoltaic-based power generation can be comparable to that from coal.

India has often been the ideal region for solar power because it has the highest solar radiation in the world. However, the benefits of solar energy were leading to countries with much less potential for total solar energy, such as Germany and Japan. The main reason these countries have become leaders is that the governments of these countries have taken an active attitude. The government artificially made the industry attractive to entrepreneurs by providing significant incentives [via the feed-in tariff mechanism] to the photovoltaic industry [especially photovoltaic]. However, this has led to a rapid rise in the learning curve for solar power, and today, both about 10 years after the introduction of the policy, both countries have flourished in the solar energy industry. This phenomenon is expected to repeat in India as a result of the Indian mission.