The Solar 2010 Conference organised under the Renewable Energy India Forum focused on the most challenging issues and opportunities available in India. Rajarshi Ghosh presents a gist of the proceedings.

Solar 2010 was a journey from a scan of the policy, available finance to projects, market study, to ultimately a technical discourse and a debate on Solar Photovoltaic & Thermals and within PVs - Thin Films vs Crystalline Silicon PVs.

Dr Bibek Bandyopadhyay, Adviser, MNRE & Head National Solar Mission, began the journey extolling the benefits of Solar Power and the Policy Initiatives taken by his Ministry to promote the same, which included capital subsidies. Dr S P Gon Chaudhuri, Managing Director, West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation Limited, traced the path from the macro to the micro level by highlighting the key issues to be resolved to achieve the key objective of solar diffusion throughout the country. The intensity of Solar Radiation varied between different States in the country and States in eastern and northeastern India had a lower intensity of radiation compared to States in western India. Hence the treatment of all States at par with respect to subsidies and tariff may affect the growth of solar industry in the East and North East. Moreover, there is a lack of coordination between growth of renewable and conventional energy sources in the country.

P K Nautiyal spoke on the policy initiatives and development of Renewable Energy (RE) projects in Haryana. The strategy for promotion of RE in Haryana covered decentralised power generation from: a) SPV technologies for lighting of unelectrified villages; and b) Solar thermal technologies for cooking and water heating applications. Jason Donovan, First Secretary, Energy, US Embassy, showed the international picture by mentioning the drivers in the US market - tax credit, renewable portfolio standards and rebate programmes, long-term increase in conventional power costs and decreasing solar costs due to scale economies. There were also presentations on India's Semiconductor Policy by Rajiv Jain, Associate Director, India SemiConductor Association, and on 'Global Colour of Future Energy Scenario' by Pradeep Chaturvedi, Chairman, Indian Association for the Advancement of Science. The Finance Session was opened by Ramana Reddy of KfW Bank, who spoke extensively on the financing of solar projects as experienced by his organisation. Germany had progressed a lot in the development of solar power and KfW had played a critical role in the same. The Indian scenario was started by H D Khunteta, Director (Finance), Rural Electrical Corporation Limited. Being an expert financier, Mr Khunteta dwelt deep into photovoltaics with a comparison of thin film and crystalline technologies, and the ideal parameters to be considered while analysing the feasibility of such projects. He admitted that most of the financers in India have no experience in this sector and there was lack of clarity in long-term government support to the industry.

Since the industry was in a nascent stage there was a need for allocation of priority status to enable it to grow. Ameet Shah, Co-Chairman & Director of Astonfield Renewables, pointed out that finance was not easily available and foreign funds were not as cheap when exchange fluctuations were factored in. However foreign funds were available for longer tenors, which was useful for the industry. Mahendra Swarup, President, India Venture Capital Association, said that the days of receiving equity capital on the strength of project reports alone were over, but if the company had started operations and the fundamentals were right, then finance would not be a constraint. While B V Rao, GM, IREDA, spoke on the structure developed by his organisation to finance grid and off grid solar applications, Arvind Reddy of WinRock International spoke on the initiatives of his organisation in the commercialisation of RE in rural India and the critical point of financing SME manufacturers was touched upon by Jaydip Sinha, MD & India Head, Houlihan Smith & Company Inc.

The Projects Session began with Dr Debajit Palit of TERI speaking on the successful initiatives of his organisation in off grid projects, mainly helping in lighting up homes of poor people in the villages. There has been a marked technology transition from conventional to CFL lamps to solar lanterns in rural India and it was possible through finance and technical support from state and private sectors and NGOs. The next presentation was by Navratan Katariya of Shurjo Energy who spoke on CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide) photovoltaics (whose absorption capacity was very high) and their application in the Indian subcontinent. This session ended with international project implementation experiences as elucidated by Adam R Smith of Solar Solutions (P) Ltd who explained the necessary steps in: a) Planning & Approval; b) Project Development; and c) Operation & Maintenance.

The Markets Session began with Sunil Jain of Green Infra Limited, who described the global uptrend in the demand for PVs with thin films growing more than crystalline silicon PVs. India, like in other segments of power, suffered from demand supply gaps in solar power also. While current demand was estimated to be around 2500 MW, present capacity was slightly above 1200 MW and this demand supply gap was expected to intensify over the years. N Santhanam of Energy Alternatives India gave an interesting presentation. His task was to talk on raising the demand for solar power, which costs four times more than conventional power and he had a five pronged answer: 1) Let go of grid solar fixation; 2) Take solar where really needed; 3) Position solar differently; (4) Use external stimuli; and (5) Encourage innovations in technology and finance. On marketing strategy Alok Nigam of Lanco Solar said the key factors to be considered while framing strategy were: percentage of peak load deficit, transmission and distribution losses, solar irradiation, infrastructure and state policy support. Anil Patni of Tata BP Solar gave an overview of the solar industry in India.

The Technology Session began with Dr R K Bhogra of BHEL who dwelled on the growth of the PV industry (45%) and the physics of PV cells including the types of silicon used to make those cells. He described the evolution of PV technology to the latest silicon based technologies under development. He was followed by Dr Mohan Bhan, who argued on the advantages of thin film photovoltaics. They were scalable, had relatively lower unit cost, configurable form factors, etc. Venkat Rajaraman, CEO of Sukam Power Systems, spoke on a very important item the "Balance of Systems" in photovoltaics, which had essentially cost vs performance dilemmas which needed to be overcome to achieve global standards. The section closed with Hitesh Jain of Underwriters Laboratories who spoke on Standards on Testing & Certification of Products and Training & Development of people; and T Ananth, CEO of Nuetech Solar who explained that though solar thermals had tremendous potential they did not receive sufficient institutional support in practice.

The conference closed with a panel discussion on "Mapping a Roadmap to Grid Parity by 2022". The members in this panel discussion were Jayant Deo, CEO, Indian Energy Exchange, S K Kaila, Vice President, Maharishi Solar, Ramana Reddy, KfW, and Ananth, MD, Neutech Solar.

The discussion was moderated by Narsimhan Santhanam of Energy Alternatives India. According to the panelists, the following were the main drivers for Grid Parity:

• Indigenisation of technology
• Technology improvements
• Focus on solar thermal, both CSP and water heaters and process heating/drying
• Feed-in-tariffs, and
• Economies of scale.

(The event was organised by IPFEdge, a division of IPFonline Limited. Complete set of presentations and videos of the conference are available for download at: http://solar2010.

renewableenergyindia.org, and for more information please contact Rajeev Kumar at email: Rajeev@ipfonline.com)