Promising potential for PV manufacturing in India @ SOLARCON India 2009

BANGALORE, INDIA: SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International) India, a leading global PV industry association, in association with Intersolar India and partner organizations India Semiconductor Association (ISA) and Fab City, organizing SOLARCON India 2009, the largest showcase for Solar/PV space in India, today held an interactive panel discussion titled, ”Rising opportunities for Solar/PV in India”.

Eminent professionals like Sankar Rao, Managing Director, Titan Energy Systems, SSN Prasad, Vice-president, Solar Semiconductors, Seshagiri Rao, India Manager, Sales, Oerlikon and Sathya Prasad, President, SEMI India were on the panel with BP Acharya, IAS, Chairman and Managing Director of Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corp. (APIIC), chairing it.

The session held as part of an overall initiative to raise awareness of the opportunity in the solar/PV space addressed wide ranging topics from market potential for PV in India and the current state of PV manufacturing in India to how India can become a major player in the global solar/PV arena.

Setting the context, Sathya Prasad, President, SEMI India, stressed the role & importance of manufacturing in PV in India. He said: ‘India has been seeing a sharp rise in PV manufacturing. Aggressive targets are being set for installed PV generation capacity to the tune of 20GW by the year 2020. While there are challenges, the country has the advantage of being an established, high quality, low cost manufacturing base.”

Sankar Rao, Managing Director, Titan Energy Systems, said: ”The global PV segment has been growing at 30 percent annually for the last five years. India has been making significant progress as a player in photovoltaic modules and panel manufacturing units and stands a good chance of emerging as a global leader in solar PV technology.”

According to SSN Prasad, Vice-president, Solar Semiconductors: “Apart from off-grid applications such as home lighting, grid connected solar/PV farms are increasingly becoming attractive in India and will help solve the growing gap between energy supply and demand. This, coupled with adoption of new technology will drive growth of the Indian solar/PV space exponentially. We also expect more players to enter the industry in the near term enticed by the market opportunity.”

In his remarks, Seshagiri Rao, India Sales Manager, Oerlikon, stated: “Shortage of solar grade feedstock to grow wafers till 2008 has stimulated renewed interest in thin-film technologies and in particular amorphous silicon and microcrystalline.


“Reduction in the cost of the modules is becoming possible through increasing stabilized efficiencies and deposition rates of the materials. Current improvements in both product and manufacturing process technologies will see per module price at retail level dropping to Rs.50 by end of 2010. Anticipating similar cost reductions in BOS spectrum, dropping of total system cost to sub Rs. 100 levels by end of 2011 is also a reality.”