Indian Solar Action Forum (I-SAF) was mooted at an international PV manufacturing summit in Gurgaon, Delhi, to build an actionable agenda with a charter to expand India's solar economy significantly.

I-SAF was proposed in the context of a panel discussion, on bridging various gaps in the solar energy sector, at a conference on PV manufacturing organised by PV Insider, in Gurgaon earlier this week. The delegates and the panel members strongly felt that there was a need to create an actionable agenda, with the involvement of all stake-holders in the country's solar energy sector.

The forum charter and objectives were deliberated upon during an unscheduled group discussion towards the end of the conference, which was attended among others by senior corporate executives from Lanco, SunEdison, DuPont, Schott Solar, Solar Semiconductor, Applied Material, Bosch, Grenzebach, MEMC, InSolare and Solarsis as well as a few representatives from consulting and media firms. They were almost unanimous in their opinion that the need of the hour was to create an actionable agenda, rather than continuously discussing the gaps in the market place.

I-SAF aims to bring together government departments, energy development agencies, power utilities, manufacturers, EPCs, system integrators, project developers, research bodies, quality testing centres, academic institutions, banks, finance and insurance companies, trading companies, NGOs and foreign governments through their respective embassies and trade centres. For the purpose, as the first step, a group named Indian Solar Action Forum has been created on professional networking website Linkedin.com.

Apart from becoming a platform for greater interaction, the forum aims to create a large knowledgebase with case studies and white papers based on solar companies' experiences with different technological, financial and marketing solutions. One of the related objectives is to educating the market and creating awareness among the end-users on the commercial advantages that could be gained through adoption of quality solar energy solutions.

One delegate from an EPC company emphasised during the discussion that it was essential for the key beneficiaries to share a part of their marketing budgets for a collective action on creating awareness programmes among large industrial and captive energy consumers.

The group asked consulting firm REECODE Energy Solutions' CEO Bhupesh Trivedi to moderate and formalise this forum. He can be reached through bhupesh@reecode.in or +91-9324246639. Solar media companies, being stakeholders in India's solar energy sector, are requested to join the group created on Linkedin.com.