Crompton Greaves ties up with French institute CEA for solar energy

Crompton Greaves (CG), an Avantha Group Company, has joined hands with LITEN (Laboratory of Innovation for New Energy) of CEA, a French state-owned research entity, to investigate market potential and opportunities for solar photo voltaic (PV) system with storage function for Indian airports.
 
There is no capital investment in the first phase of this collaboration, however following investigation if found suitable, the companies intend to set up manufacturing facilities using CG’s infrastructure and expertise in India and technology knowhow of CEA for commercialising the business opportunity.
 
Being a critical infrastructure, airports need significant energy backup. Use of solar PV with battery backup is an innovative solution that will enable Indian airports to reduce carbon emissions by moving over the traditional diesel generator (DG) sets, at the same time make it an economical option given the considerable Time of Day (TOD) charges levied.
   
LITEN is a major European research institute and a driving force behind the development of the sustainable energy technologies of the future. The institute is spearheading the EU’s efforts to limit dependency on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is a part of CEA Tech, the R&D wing of the innovation giant, the CEA - a French government-funded technological research organisation in the areas of energy, defence and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.
 
CEA’s LITEN Institute is a centre for technological research in new energy (fuel-cell, hydrogen-production, photovoltaic and biomass) and storage technologies, fields in which CEA holds considerable know-how.
 
The collaboration synergises the strategic strengths and complementary competencies of both establishments - CEA with its significant expertise in photovoltaic and battery storage technologies and CG an established player in AC substations in solar plants with significant market reach with large customers.
 
The Indian government has announced to achieve 100 GW of power generation through solar PV systems by 2022, current installed solar generation capacity is less than 6 GW. The expected new PV solar systems market is nearly 13 GW per year. Airports with large stretches of free land offer good opportunity for solar generation. It is estimated that there is a potential of over 500 MW of solar PV generation plants for Airports alone. This makes the collaboration a significant step towards realising the Indian Government’s renewable energy goals.
 
Laurent Demortier, CEO & managing director, CG, said, “This agreement is in line with the synergies that the two countries - India & France, are exploring and combines CG’s infrastructure with CEA’s knowhow in the field. This collaboration will help to leverage the huge potential for solar power generation in the country and we look forward to the opportunities this puts forward.”