The Union Government and the central bank should learn from China in supporting local manufacturing and infrastructure for the solar industry, said K. Subramanya, CEO, Tata-BP Solar.

Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Subramanya said “solar India” had much to learn from the Chinese Government, banks and policy-makers and match China in supporting local manufacturing and infrastructure, something which was important for national security. “China has stolen a march over us and everybody and is several notches ahead, though India started much early. At present, we do not have a level-playing field. In the present situation, it is difficult for local manufacturers to make progress in spite of their proven capabilities. In fact, solar manufacturing is dying. Unless this is addressed seriously, local manufacturing will wither away or fold up leaving the field open for dumping by China,” he said.

Training

Mr. Subramanya said the government had to undertake large-scale training and development of technical manpower for promoting solar industry.

The CEO said as of 2011, only 10.94 per cent of installed power capacity is renewable. Conventional energy was becoming expensive and was likely to become even more so. India already imports nearly two-thirds of its crude oil requirements. “Growth, prosperity, urbanisation and increased access will lead to demand for power. Domestic price of conventional energy has to rise if prudent pricing decisions are taken. There are several reasons why alternative sources of energy should increasingly be used. Imports of crude oil and natural gas can be impeded by strategic considerations,” he said.

Mr. Subramanya said technological developments were reducing the cost of solar power generation. “In many backward villages, it is difficult to deliver conventional energy through grid-based solutions. Renewable energy offers speed and flexibility for inclusive growth via solar off-grid solutions,” he said.

“The government needs to ensure the feed-in tariff is carefully set to the solar power developers. If it is too high, it will be unsustainable and lead to price rise for other consumers, if it is too low, it will not attract serious investments. Competitive tariff bidding is a good idea in theory to discover the price of a commodity in a matured market.

“Solar is still evolving. The second issue for the government is to raise off-grid deployment manifold given the vastness of India and the state of electrification. There are 23 million households without electricity,” he said.

Share