Bangalore-based Anu Solar Power is going great guns with its water heaters and is now setting up an extended facility to make new products with German collaboration, reports Huned Contractor

First, the theory. The National Solar Mission (NSM) is a major initiative of the Government of India and state governments to promote ecologically sustainable growth while addressing India's energy security challenges. It will also constitute a major contribution by India to the global effort to meet the challenges of climate change. Its immediate aim is to focus on setting up an enabling environment for solar technology penetration in the country both at a centralised and decentralised level.

The first phase up to 2013 will focus on capturing of the low hanging options in solar thermal, on promoting off-grid systems to serve populations without access to commercial energy and modest capacity addition in grid-based systems. In the second phase, after taking into account the experience of the initial years, capacity will be aggressively ramped up to create conditions for upscaled and competitive solar energy penetration in the country.And now, the practicality. The NSM's approach is perfect and its goals can be 100 per cent realised. This is what T J Joseph, the managing director of the Bangalore-based Anu Solar Power, believes. "India is on the threshold of solarisation," he says. In fact, it is this strong confidence in the country's march to harnessing solar power that has kept Joseph not only moving from one invention to another but has gradually helped advance his company to a stage where he can now claim to have a market share of over 50 per cent in Bangalore's 5,00,000-plus solar water heaters. Assured that the demand will continue to pick up, the company has launched a media campaign to promote its new series of water heaters. "We are aiming for a huge quantitative growth from Rs 60 crore turnover last year to Rs 150 crore this year and Rs 500 crore by 2014-15," Joseph states.

Joseph, a science graduate as well as a certified chartered accountant, had never thought he would one day head a company making solar-powered products. He began as a finance officer for a company making furnaces and ovens and left it in 1984 to venture out as an entrepreneur. His initial assignments of general fabrication work were for his former employer, following which he started to fabricate biomass gassifiers, first for H S Mukunda, a professor at the Indian Institute for Science, and then for the Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources which later came to be known as the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy. Joseph's foray into water heaters began after he came into contact with J Srinivasan, professor and head of the Solar Energy Laboratory set up by the government as a demonstration unit for efficient use of solar energy.

"We started making these water heaters under Prof Srinivasan's guidance and sold 150 units in the first year," Joseph recalls. Now the company sells up to 150 water heaters per day! But it was never just about making a product and trying to sell it. Joseph saw the bigger picture right from the start, which is what prompted him to take over a defunct non-banking finance company to lend money to those who wanted to buy the Anu brand of water heaters. "This came out of the government's policy in 2000 that offered a 5 per cent interest subsidy on loans taken to buy solar water heaters," he says. This visionary approach has also embraced constant innovation that includes the first smokeless chula (wood fuel fed stove used in rural areas) for household cooking, the first of its kind solar water heaters with mild steel collectors, the first indigenous fully automatic LPG baking oven, and so on.

Now, along with its solar water heaters, the company is planning forward integration into small solar power generators for homes as well as backward integration into making invertors through a joint venture with SEI AG, a German company. The collaborative entity, Anusmart Power Systems, will make 'SMART' generators and off-grid power supply systems in a new facility being constructed near its existing plant. The company is also planning to set up 'experience stores' where potential buyers can touch and feel a product before investing in it. "There is a need to expand the reach for our products through such a retail outlet chain. We will set up 50 such stores by the year-end," Joseph states. The company also markets LED lighting systems for both indoor and outdoor use.

Accredited as a channel partner for the MNRE, the company's strong focus on research and development recently led to the development of glass reinforced polymer (GRP) tanks that offer a permanent solution against corrosion in solar water heaters for domestic and industrial applications. "Our constant endeavour is to develop renewable energy products that are affordable to the large masses of India, especially those in rural areas where conventional sources of energy are infrequent. Our R&D facility is therefore engaged in reverse engineering and indigenously developing world-class products," Joseph states.

(Anu Solar Power (P) Ltd, No: 248, 8th Main, 3rd Cross, 3rd Phase, Peenya Industrial Area, Bangalore 560 058. Tel.: 080-43550200. Email: info@anusolar.com)