Indian photovoltaic production capacity tops 1 GW per year
India, which has less than 1% of the world’s installed PV power capacity, now accounts for 10% of its PV manufacturing.
India’s solar PV (photovoltaic) module production capacity has crossed more than 1 gigawatt (GW) per year or nearly 10% of the global production capacity, according to market research firm Frost & Sullivan.The country has ramped up its production from around 0.06 GW in 2005 to 1 GW by the end of 2009, the firm said.However, nearly all of the production is exported. Even as India now produces around 1 GW of modules a year, the total installed PV capacity in India is merely 0.12 to 0.15 GW, according to industry estimates.In comparison, Germany had an installed capacity of 5.3 GW in 2008. Indeed, PV installations still account for a tiny fraction of the globe’s installed power generation capacity.For example, the global PV power generation capacity of around 20 GW is just about a seventh of India’s conventional power generation capacity.That is not stopping Indian companies from going for the market in a big way, says Frost & Sullivan’s Hemanth Nayak. “The Indian solar PV market is likely to grow in terms of PV modules and cell exports to various developed nations in the world,” he says, adding that around 75% of this production will end up in the European Union in the next two to three years. “India, with its advantages of lower labour costs, offers domestic PV suppliers opportunities to manufacture economical, yet high quality modules and cells, enabling them to gain an edge in the world market,” he adds. Total production of solar modules in India will hit 2.6 GW by 2015, he predicts.India has a large number of PV manufacturers, including the Hyderabad-based Solar Semiconductor, Bangalore-based Tata-BP and New Delhi-based Moser Baer PV. Moser Baer, for example, alone has a production rate of 0.1 GW per year and expects global manufacturing capacity to be around 8-10 GW in 2010.PV modules, while declining in price every year, have an installation cost of around Rs 16,000 crore per GW compared to around Rs 4,000 crore for an equivalent capacity coal-plant.Besides, unlike a coal plant, it cannot be operated 24-hours a day, thus reducing its actual capacity to about a third of the installed capacity. However, unlike coal or gas powered plants, they give near free power for 25 years, once installed.Three months ago, the Indian government announced its plan to increase solar power generation by almost ten times by 2013 through a combination of PV and other technologies like solar thermal or steam-based generation.Yogesh Mathur, CFO of Moser Baer, expects the move to increase the pace of growth even more. “For the kind of growth we are talking about, we may have to focus on thin film technologies also,” Mathur, whose firm will double its capacity this year, says.Interestingly, India has zero domestic production of the chief raw material in the production of solar modules, the raw silicon crystal or polysilicon. Indian manufacturers depend on import of silicon wafers or strips to make PV modules.Thin films, which are made by spraying compounds such as Cadmium Telluride, however do not necessarily need imported silicon and cost only around 70% of crystalline-silicon panels. However, because of their lower energy efficiency, they take up up to 50% more area to produce the same amount of power.