P2 Solar establishes operating company to secure projects in India

BRITISH COLUMBIA: P2 Solar Inc. has formed a wholly owned subsidiary in India called Jagat Energy Pvt Ltd.

Creating Jagat Energy was a necessary step for P2 Solar to become a player in the rapidly growing Energy markets in India. This allows P2 to comply with certain local government and corporate requirements that normally preclude foreign participation.

Bali Randhawa, COO of P2, said, "This creates an efficient legal and tax structure for us and is a requirement for actually operating on the ground in India."

India's electric power needs are projected to double every 5 years, and its clean energy sector is already a $20 billion annual opportunity. The national government has set a target of building solar capacity to 5 GW by 2017 and 20 GW by 2022. The 2022 target for solar alone represents 10 percent of India's current total electric power generating capacity.

P2 Solar is focused on servicing this huge opportunity. Long-standing and deep relationships with India's renewable energy decision makers and industry players gives P2 Solar a decided advantage in capturing a significant portion of this expanding market.

Both the public and private sectors in India are pushing to grow the clean energy industries. The national government has also set goals for other renewables - hydro, wind, biomass. State governments have set their own targets on top of the national plans. And the governments are rapidly pushing through laws and regulations to create the policy infrastructure to ensure their goals are met. With Indian power prices significantly higher than in North America (often three to four times higher) and increasing, private power buyers are highly motivated to buy clean power from private developers.

"India cannot rely on traditional fossil fuel power alone to meet projected demand. Domestic coal is in short supply, imported coal is expensive, and nuclear power has decades long build cycles. If India doesn't meet its power needs, its growth will halt, so there is tremendous pressure on government and the private sector to pull on all levers. The sky is literally the limit here and the reason we decided to refocus the Company's efforts," said Raj-Mohinder Gurm, president/CEO of P2 Solar.

In addition, the policy infrastructure has been created to enable the private sector to develop market-based clean tech projects, such as in solar, wind, biomass, and hydro power generation, without direct government involvement. The private sector policy is based on renewable purchase obligations on big power users that create renewable energy credits that can be sold by project developers on power exchanges that have already been established. P2 is developing projects under both public contracts and the direct market based mechanisms.