Germany based Refusol, a manufacturer of solar inverters has set up a manufacturing unit at Lonikand near Pune. REFUsol will manufacture its 10kW, 13kW ,17kW, 20kW and 23kW string inverters for the Indian, South Asian and Middle East market.
The company has invested 1.5 millon euros (Rs 10.5 crore)) for this facility and will invest additional five million euros (Rs 35 crore) in the next five years.
Commenting on this, Norbert Frings, CEO, Refusol said, "India has a huge potential for solar inverters market and there is a demand for power generation products. With power shortage in India, our solar inverters will play a central role in the Indian and global energy mix Along with manufacturing, we are setting up research and development centre in India. We are bringing advanced solar inverter technology to India. We are focusing only commercial market for selling three phase solar inverters."
He added, "EPCs and investors like the concept of our high efficiency inverters which is not only giving them capital cost benefits but also help them to reduce the operational cost of plant and getting 2 to 3 per cent more generation benefits. With our local production here in Pune we are now able to meet our customer's needs even better and in shorter time."
The facility has a capacity of producing 15000 units per year and will manufacture additional central solar inverters having capacity ranging from 333 kw up to 1mw. The production will start by July 2013. Initially, company is importing all its products from Germany.
It had plans to localise to the extent of 50 per cent by the end of the year.he average cost for generating one watt of power is Rs 660. Refusol will export these inverters to Africa, Middle East and South East Asian markets.
According to Frings, the three-phase string inverters are suitable for rooftop systems from 10 kW upwards, right through to megawatt parks. Aslo, even at low irradiation, the three-phase inverters achieve an efficiency of up to 98.2 per cent.
