| Indian Market Potential |
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Today India is set to become one of the top five generators of Solar Power in the world. With the announcement of the New Solar Policy, over 3GW of new solar power plants are estimated to be built in India by 2020. The cumulative total of PV systems installed in India is 250 MW in the year 2006 including export of 160 MW. India position was 4th in the world in 2004 in solar production. India had started country wide Solar Photovoltaic Program for about 2 decades and has installed an aggregate 1.3 million systems. 560 000 nos of solar lanterns, 342000 knockoff home lights, 54000 nos. of street lights, 7002 nose of water pumps, Stand alone and grid connected power plants of 5 MW and other systems are being installed as government sponsored efforts. The present market for Solar products in India is approximately 80 MW per year and it is expected to reach 150 MW in 2008. The present production capacity in India is approximately 40 MW with over 50% of this going to the export market. KSPL plans to export 80% of its production (up to 70 MW in Phase I and 140 MW in Phase II) to meet growing global demand, particularly from European countries. A country wide Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Program has been carried out by the Indian Government's Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) for the last two decades. The program is aimed at developing cost effective PV technology and its application to large scale diffusion in different sectors, especially in rural and remote areas. The MNES in collaboration with the Ministry of Power has targeted the installation of nearly 200 MW of Solar PV capacity by the year 2008 for various rural village electrification applications such as Solar electricity generation, Solar lanterns, Solar home lighting systems, Solar water pumps and other applications. India receives solar energy equivalent to cover 5000 Trillion KWh which is far more energy consumption of the country .On an average solar energy is 4.7 KWh/meter square. The new Indian National Highway , rural road connections and the connection of various capital cities to the National Highway is also expected to be a major market opportunity for Solar PV power. The Government of India has planned to spend Rs 58,000 Crores (~US$ 13 billion) in the next 20 years on developing a major highway system. Spending for the next 5 years alone on this project is expected to be roughly Rs 21,000 Crores (US$4.6 billion), 6-lane and 4-lane major highway development will take place in the next 5 years covering 10,000 km. Solar power is expected to be used to provide power for street lighting, billboard and road information lighting, toll and service station lighting etc. for these new highway developments. This represents a verylarge potential market over the next 5 years. Many states and local Governments in India are supporting solar power in many ways. The Pune Municipal Corporation, where large construction activities are taking place have announced that in all building construction projects, common areas, landings, reception areas, garden and open areas will be lighted by Solar powered lighting systems. Similarly, the Bangalore Municipal Corporation has also announced that Solar power will be used in all common areas in new building projects. A symbolic Preliminary Information Memorandum gesture from the Government to power the Rashtrapati Bhawan (Presidential Palace) with Solar power is a great step forward. These promotional activities should be extended to most of public places such as parliament house, state councils, courts, national parks and monuments, post offices, banks etc. In private sector scenario many house builders are offering free electricity produced from Solar systems to take care of common need. A great deal of importance is being given in India and other nations, where power infrastructure is underdeveloped, to rural Solar electrification, Solar street lighting, Solar home lighting, Solar agricultural water pumping and other rural Solar applications. It is expected that many more market opportunities will emerge with PV over the next decade. Water pump application in domestic and agriculture sector has an immense growth potential as this can be used on online. City street lights, traffic lights, railway signals, port lighting, airport lighting,metro/underground railway lighting & various other projects are also expected to use Solar PV power in the coming years. These will become more affordable and reliable due to increasingly popular application combination of LED's (light emitting diodes) and Solar Modules. |