BRIDGE TO INDIA’s quarterly report on the Indian solar market analyzes policy, projects, industry and financing; the key drivers of this market. The latest edition of the quarterly, explores the telecom tower segment as a significant opportunity that will emerge in the market in the coming 5 years.
In the April issue, we’re looking at:
- The last quarter has seen PV projects under both, the National Solar Mission (NSM) and the Gujarat solar policy being commissioned, taking the current total installed capacity of PV in India to 540.4MW. This is the largest PV capacity addition in any quarter in the Indian market so far.
- A majority of the projects have managed to complete only after being delayed beyond the deadlines under the respective solar policies.
- Commissioning projects has been a challenge in an industry that is yet to gain easy access to project financing.
- Developers have further had to deal with tough execution challenges to complete their projects.
- The Indian PV manufacturing industry is in dire straits at the moment, running their plants well below capacity due to dwindling orders. None the less, some Indian manufacturers are investing in integrating across the value chain and expanding current production capacity.
- Given the continuing fall in solar tariffs, developers are increasingly seeing the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) segment as being unviable and exploring project opportunities outside this segment.
- For the telecom tower segment as well, solar is well positioned to replace diesel generated power which can cost as high as INR25 (EURO0.38)/kWh depending on the location of the telecom tower.
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