India Solar, Wind, Biomass, Biofuels – EAI

3rd Renewable Energy Conference Hyderabad

Latest News for Energy Efficiency, Solar, Wind, Biomass Power, Biofuels, Waste to Energy

EAI Participates in the 3rd Renewable Energy Conference Hyderabad

by Mr. Narasimhan Santhanam, Director, Energy Alternatives India.

EAI was the research partner for the conference and also released a white paper titled “Not Just Power – The Diverse Opportunities in the Solar PV Value Chain”. The white paper can be downloaded here.

I was one of the panelists in the first session titled “India: The dawn of a new solar superpower”. I was also the moderator of the third session, which was about the balance of systems. The organizers of the event have uploaded the presentations made by some of the speakers in the conference website -  http://www.renewableenergyconference.in/conf-prog2011.html .

Over a hundred professionals had attended the conference, a good number of them from outside Hyderabad.

The keynote address was by Sujeet Kishen, Executive Director, Climate Change & Sustainability Services @ Ernst & Young India Pvt. Ltd.

The conference had the following four sessions. Please click on the link to go to the relevant section

The details of each section is given below

Session 1 - India: The dawn of a new solar superpower

  • Session Moderator: Ashvini Kumar, Director, MNRE

Panelists:

  • D.T. Vinod Kumar, Chairman, Indian Institute of Architects – AP Chapter
  • Hari Kiran – Managing Director, Sujana Energy,
  • Narasimhan Santhanam – Co-founder/Director, EAI

I had the opportunity to be part of this session which comprised professionals from the government (MNRE), a renewable energy solutions provider with an emphasis on solar, and an architect who looked at solar from a building and an architecture perspective.

The MNRE director dwelt a bit on the National Solar Mission(JNNSM) as well as emphasized the need for exploring off-grid possibilities rather than being just focused on grid connected power plants alone. He also mentioned that in his opinion, passive solar should be built into the building design itself. When someone asked him about the domestic content rule for solar PV, he reminded everyone that the rule was applicable only for grid connected solar PV, and off-grid systems were free to use panels from anywhere.

On blending solar with conventional power, he referred to the bundled pricing and mentioned that a small amount of solar power bundled into conventional power alone costs Rs 2000 crores in the form of subsidy. In this context, he also mentioned about RPO, REC and SPO (solar purchase obligations).

When the discussion turned to the bankability of solar projects, he did admit that there was some hesitation from the banks, one of the reasons being that NVVN was a subsidiary of NTPC but it was not NTPC and had a much smaller balance sheet – thus many banks were not comfortable.

Another interesting point made the MNRE director and appreciated by everyone in the audience was about the after-sales service. He mentioned that this was a key bottleneck to the growth of off-grid solar, and hence this was where entrepreneurs needed to focus.

Hari Kiran of Sujana Energy was of the opinion that innovation alone was not enough for solar to go to the next orbit, scale was important as well. He also appealed to the government to make the single window clearances a reality rather than it being just a concept on paper.

Vinod Kumar from the Indian Institute of Architects has a background in architecture and he also has designed and executed rooftop solar PV systems. He felt that there was a vigorous thrust for solar in Bangalore but felt it was not the case in Hyderabad (though some in the audience did not appear to agree with him). He also felt that owing to innovations, the CUFs (capacity utilization factors) for solar water heaters had been going up all the time, resulting in a decrease in reluctance for using these. He also mentioned that while there was an earlier government order that all streetlights should be solar based, this order was subsequently stayed (at this point someone pointed out that all was not bad with Hyderabad and that the Vidhana Soudha had a 100 kW solar PV system).

Some innovations were also discussed on passive solar – one such mentioned was an innovation in Italy of a porous concrete wall that increases the amount of light going in.

Some in the audience were curious to know what India’s policy should be in the context of imports of panels from China. A few also mentioned how we were all talking about energy efficiency but were sitting under (a lot of) incandescent lamps and enormous amount of AC.

Another question from the audience referred to land banks that needed to be generated for solar.  The MNRE director answered that, yes, land banks were important, but that the state governments should do it because it comes under state policy.

One last interesting question from the audience was about the large water requirements for manufacturing solar wafers and ingots and how to reduce the requirements. A panelist referred to some of the innovations attempted in this context by thermal power stations and mentioned that these innovations could be adopted for solar as well. Air cooling instead of water cooling was also mentioned as a possibility.

Go to the top

2nd Plenary Session - Role of Technologies in Achieving Economies in Solar PV

  • Chairperson: Rajinder Kumar, CMD, Bergen Associates

Speakers

  • Seshagiri Rao Meka, Country Manager, Sales – India, Oerlikon Solar
  • Dr Thomas Bickl, Director, New Business Development, Solar Division, Schuco International KG
  • Senthil Kumar, Technical Head – PV Inverters, Bonfiglioli Transmission (P) Ltd
  • Mohan Bhan, Vice President – Engg and Tech (Thin Films), Moserbaer Photovoltaics Ltd.

Seshagiri Rao Meka - Oerlikon Solar

Oerlikon Solar is one of the leading suppliers of production lines for thin film silicon modules.

Some of the key notes from Seshagiri’s presentation are given below.

  • Seshagiri dwelt a lot on the advantages of thin film over crystalline Silicon.
  • He mentioned that Oerlikon Solar’s thin films have a 10% efficiency, one of the highest in the world
  • He emphasized the fact that the company is Swiss, and hence has a name for efficiency
  • He  highlighted the fact that at higher temperatures, thin films will have lower degradation than will crystalline
  • He mentioned that 14 lakh units per MW is possible with c-Si in India; he was of the opinion that it could be as high as 15.5 lac units per MW for thin films
  • He felt that a-Si (amorphous silicon) thin films were better than CdTe, because toxicity is present in CdTe, none in silicon); he also mentioned that while CIGS could possibly give as high as 12% efficiency, it costs about $1/W, while a-Si, while the efficiency is lower (about 10%), cost is much lower than CIGS (only 65 cents per W)

Thomas Bickl of Schuco International.

Schuco has a turnover of about $2.3 billion euros for 2010, and is into solar, PVC and metal facades.

One of the key points Thomas emphasized during the speech was not to look at installation costs, but to focus on lifetime and long term costs.

Levelized Cost of Electricity(LCOE) = (total lifecycle cost)/total lifetime energy production

Total Life Cycle Cost comprises of Material Cost, Installation Cost, Capital Expense Cost, Land Acquisition Cost, Grid Interconnection Cost, Project Cost, and Operational Expense Cost

Total Lifetime Energy comprises Material Efficiency, Material Degradation, BOS Quality and System Design.
Some other points made by him are below

  • He wondered what the point of a warranty was if the company that gave it didn’t exist after a few years!
  • He also mentioned that one didn’t have to give subsidies for solar; just removing the subsidies on fossil fuels was enough to make renewable energy competitive
  • He also made a plea to focus on rooftop solar instead of only large grid connected power plants.

He made a comparison between

  1. cheap panels (1600 kWh/kWp) which have a lifetime of 15 years, cost  Rs 1.2 lakhs / kW, with the attendant cost of electricity being 10.8 Rs/kWh, and
  2. high quality panels, 1800 kWh/kWp, 25 years lifetime, cost Rs 1.5 lakhs and cost of electricity being Rs 6/kWh!

He also dwelt on the advantages of thin film solar modules over crystalline silicon modules. They are

  • Reduced sensitivity for shadow and better usage of indirect sunlight.
  • Excellent temperature stability and higher energy yields in hot climate zones.
  • Specific spectral response.
  • Allows new applications.

In the context of temperature stability, he also mentioned that advantages of thin films at high and low temperatures were confirmed, and that tests suggested about 8% higher yields for thin films over crystalline for these conditions.

Senthil Kumar, Bonfiglioli Transmissions

Senthil spoke about inverters and some of the features of Bonfiglioli. The company provided the inverter for the 1st SPV power plant (3 MW) in Karnataka; it also provided the inverters (500 kW) for Moser Baer’s 5 MW thin film solar power plant in Sivaganga, Tamil Nadu.

One interesting point he mentioned was that while a 5 MW PV plant might have earlier had 20x250 kW inverters, now it might even have a 500 kW inverter.

According to him, the following is a configuration for an economic solar PV power plant

  • Large inverter with MPPT with common AC unit
  • Fewer number of transformers
  • Minimum number of switchgears

Mohan Bhan, Moser Baer Photovoltaics

The key points highlighted by Mohan are below.

  • Moser Baer had completed a BIPV installation at a mall in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad.
  • The company also had completed a 5 MW plant in Sivaganga and a 1 MW Maharashtra.
  • He mentioned that China had provided lots of incentives to solar the PV industry: free land, 5% interest or very low rates & 20% duty drawback on exports for solar panels.

Go to the top

3rd Plenary Session - Balance of Systems – A critical, innovative approach

  • Chairperson: Narasimhan Santhanam, Cofounder and Director, EAI

Speakers

  • Gagandeep Kaur, Business Development Manager – Solar, India, Skytron Energy GmbH
  • Sachin Jain, Manager – Strategy and Marketing, Mahindra Cleantech Ventures, Division of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.
  • Dr Jatin Roy, Vice President, Solar Semiconductor
  • Umesh Sathe – GM, Solar Business of Siemens

Gagandeep Kaur, Skytron – Solar PV Monitoring Systems

Gagandeep heads the business development for Skytron in India. The company focuses only on monitoring systems for solar PV power plants; it has been in operations since 1977, when it started providing metering solutions. Currently, the company has about 1 GW of solar PV for its monitoring systems.

She explained that there are five levels at which monitoring and reporting are done – from field level until supervisor level. She mentioned how even small failures could be highlighted using monitoring systems – especially at inverters, energy meters and contacts.

According to her, solution independence and vendor neutrality are important for monitoring systems. For monitoring and control, she mentioned that a two way communication is better instead of one way, and her company product can achieve that.

Many solar PV plant developers prefer to have plant supervision such that it can be done remotely with single control room for many locations.

Sachin Jain, Mahindra Cleantech – Balance of Systems and Reliability from a Developer Perspective

Sachin Jain leads the market assessment, new initiatives and alliances for Mahindra Cleantech Ventures.  His speech focused on what a developer would require from the balance of systems solutions and vendors. His company is currently executing a solar PV plant under the NSM. His company also offers EPC and offgrid services.

Some key takeaways from his speech

  • For a developer, it is important to know the types of guarantees available. And, timely delivery and execution are critical
  • Inverters, cables and junction boxes constitute about 15% of total costs of a solar PV power plant.
  • One way of reducing cost will be to have the structures and localization done from local vendors.
  • 70% of failures occur from 15% of system components

Sachin also discussed the key aspects to be considered during Project execution stage for Inverters, combiner boxes, monitoring systems, Trackers, power evacuation and civil works.

Dr Jatin Roy, Solar Semiconductor – Balance of Systems, Issues and Options

Dr. Roy is currently Vice President (R&D) and is responsible for R&D, technology, engineering, quality, certification, power management and EPC related activities of the organization. His company makes modules and cells and they also provide assistance in putting up both offgrid and grid connected solar power plants.The company has just completed installing a 1 MW in Andhra Pradesh.

Dr Roy spoke on the tech options available, in terms of

  • c-Si or Thin-film
  • Fixed mounting or mounting with trackers

He emphasized the importance of trackers and mentioned that First Solar had acquired a tracker company precisely owing to the growing importance of the trackers. He also dwelt on the requirements for the structures in the solar PV farm – durability, reliability, speed, wind speed, corrosion

On inverter lifetime, he mentioned that usually they have only a 5-year warranty, but he expects inverters to work for 20 years.

Umesh Sathe, Siemens Solar – Balance of Systems from the Perspective of Cost per Unit of Electricity

Umesh heads the solar photovoltaic systems business in Siemens India. Umesh mentioned how Siemens has been an integral part of the solar PV industry, with even the polysilicon manufacturing process called the Siemens process. Siemens was also the first company to put a central inverter in the grid.

Umesh dwelt on how to reduce the cost per unit of energy (kWh), rather than just looking at the capital costs or running costs. Also, the unit to be kept in mind is not the capacity (kW) but the energy produced (kWh)

Cost per kWh = (Fixed cost + running cost)/(# of units produced)

So, the idea is to decrease both components in the numerator and increase the one in the denominator.  He also dwelt on evaluation of specific components such as transformers, evacuation, electrical systems, and explained how one could explore cost reduction through the use of an impact matrix.

Go to the top

4th Plenary Session - Finance: A key catalyst to upscale the adoption of solar PV

  • Seshan Balakrishnan, Director, Transaction Advisory Service, E&Y (India) Pvt Ltd
  • Mahendra Swarup – President, Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association
  • Praveen Kumar, Vice President – Marketing, Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC)
  • Rajender Kumar, Sector Head, APInvest, GoAP
  • Saravanan Nattanmai, Senior Associate, Nereus Capital

I was not fully present during the final session, hence I am not able provide detailed inputs on the same. Some of the key points I do recollect were that Nereus Capital is a fund focused solely on renewable energy and clean technology. While I presume they are not the only one with a cleantech focus, I am not sure how many funds are fully dedicated to cleantech alone. In that respect Nereus, could stand out from among the crowd of PEs.

One point that Saravanan mentioned was that companies that made modules and other equipments for the solar PV industry could get attractive valuations. I am not sure if he meant that these would get better valuations than the power producing companies, but I guess it is fairly obvious that there are much better upsides possible if you are an equipment producer than if you are power producer whose revenues are bound by long term PPAs.

Go to the top