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The company’s solar division that makes inverters, switch gears and provides operation and maintenance solutions for solar power units plans to focus on emerging roof-top solar power generation market as it sees big potential in it in the coming years.
The engineering major also wants to cash in on its recently launched solar pump drives which have been re-engineered for India to meet requirements of uninterrupted and reliable power supply for the rural market and agricultural sector. With the union government allocating Rs 400 crore for such solar pumps in the budget, the company sees a scope of 25 per cent rise in sales in 2014-15. With over 300 sunny days a year, the solar pump drives could help farmers maximise the benefits of solar power, while reducing dependency on the conventional grid power.
“We are a company with a long term perspective in renewable energy sector especially solar and wind power. We want to grow in this sector by building on our key competencies power and automation technologies,” said A H Kawdikar, vice president, country head (solar).
“In solar sector we have taken number of initiatives one of them is how to make the inverter more grid interactive. The other one is how to remotely monitor the solar power plants. As these plants are remotely located, an expert cannot remain present at the site everyday. So we are talking to existing solar power plant operators in Gujarat and having discussion on their requirements for remote monitoring of the plant,” Kawdikar said. This, he said, was to optimise the output of power from the unit.
Another area where the company is focusing is the roof-top solar power systems. After the success of the project in Gandhinagar, many states are encouraging such initiatives, Kawdikar said.
“We have suppled solar inverters to Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and also Delhi for generation of roof-top solar power. The reasons for the good response is the policy support by the centre as well as the state. Also, with people seeing opportunity to cut down on their grip power usage the roof-top solar power generation is a good option,” he added.
The company is also providing electrical side support for the 10 Mw canal top solar power project in Vadodara. The project is being implemented on main canal of the Sardar Sarovar Irrigation project.
The solar pump drives launched by the company is also likely to make life easy for the farmers using diesel-run motors for pumping out underground water to irrigate their farms. "We sold about 2,000 solar pump drives last year and this year we plan to sell another 2,500 of them," Kawdikar said.
According to Kawdikar the first half of 2014-15 was slow for the company as decisions on orders were delayed or deferred for one reason or the other. "But for the second half we are optimistic and see significant growth during this period. Our order book was for equipment of 100 Mw capacity. We expect another 200 Mw business in the second half," he explained.
