Reliance Industries and Tata of India keen on solar power biz
Dec. 15, 2007 Source : CNBC-TV18
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/business/
ril-tata-keensolar-power-biz/13/54/317495
It’s power play of a different kind and one that many companies including Reliance Industries and Tata are betting on. We’re talking about solar power. Why everyone’s betting on the sun? CNBC-TV18 report finds out… Bangalore-based solar power generation company, Tata BP is looking at doubling its capacity to 60 MW annually. Moser Baer is expected to start generation of solar power of 100 MW capacity by mid-2008. Sources informed CNBC-TV18, Reliance Industries, which is in the midst of setting up its 10 MW solar power plant in West Bengal, is also looking to hike capacity to up to 1000 MW per annum. Reliance declines to comment on that but it is clear that there is renewed interest from India inc in this sector.
Said Charles Gay, VP, Applied Materials, “Solar market will be growing at the rate of 30% per year in the next few years. In the past 10 years, the average growth rate has been 40%. ”
That growth comes at the back of reducing costs. And the price of solar power has fallen 33%, from Rs 30 per unit five years ago to about Rs 20 for a unit now. But it is still three times more expensive than conventional power. A gap that experts believe is narrowing slowly and surely.
According to Ranjan Banerjee, Professor, Energy Systems Engineering, IIT, Mumbai, “In solar, apart from modules, it is also the balance of systems. It is the invertors, power electronics and reducing the costs is also important.”He further informed, “Module costs have been coming down over time.”
And over time, experts predict that solar technology will turn more cost-effective and that they say can happen only with some fundamental breakthroughs, which help make solar power a mass phenomenon.