Solar Inverter Manufacturer Opportunities at the ISA Workshop
PC's Solar Photovoltaics Blog
The India Semiconductor Association (ISA), in association withGovernment of West Bengal, Webel & West Bengal Green Energy PowerDevelopment Corp. Ltd (WBGEPDCL) organized a workshop on solar inverters today in Kolkata.
Debesh Das, Honorable Minister of Information Technology, Government of WestBengal inaugurated the workshop and highlighted the need to strengthensolar inverter manufacturing capabilities in the State of West Bengal.
The workshop was attended by manufacturers, system integrators, powerdevelopers, researchers, academia, key policy and decision makers. Itbrought together experts from the industry the government to provide acomprehensive techno-commercial perspective on solar inverters anddiscussed the opportunities, challenges and issues faced by themanufacturers and the solar PV based power developers.
Few facts on solar power industry in India:
• Worldwide solar cell production reached a consolidated figure of 9.3 GW in 2009.
• Increasing investments in production capacity of polysilicon, emergence of Thin Film technology and reduction in material consumption persilicon solar cell, are expected to drive the reduction in the cost ofsolar systems.
• The capacity in India is currently estimated inexcess of about 400 MW for cells and about 1,000 MW for modules. Basedon the interactions with the industry, the capacity of PV cells andmodules in India is estimated to cross 750 MW and 1250 MW by the end ofyear 2010.
• The production in India for year 2008-09 is estimated at 175 MW of cells and 240 MW of modules. A large proportion of theproduction was exported.
• According to the Annual Report of MNRE(2008-09), there are about 15 players in cell manufacturing, over 20players in modules and more than 50 in solar assembly.
Commenting on the workshop, Dr Pradip K Dutta, vice chairman, ISA said, “Indiaoffers a large market for the solar inverters, however domesticcompanies need to improve product design and expand their capacities tobe able to compete at a global level."
Rajiv Jain, chiefcoordinator-Solar PV Industry, ISA, said: “We at ISA work closely withthe government and the industry to facilitate creation of the conducivepolicy framework and the ecosystem that will help local companies tapthe growing market."
