CEO of Tata BP Solar resigned as Industry struggles against cheap Chinese supply…

Power India found that Mr. K. Subramanya the CEO of India’s third-largest panel make Tata BP Solar Ltd. has resigned as the panel manufacture industry struggles to cope with oversupply from Chinese competitors that’s crushed prices.

 

Indian panel makers such as Tata BP, Indosolar Ltd. (ISLR) and Moser Baer India Ltd. (MBI) are struggling along with counterparts in the U.S. and Europe after lower-cost Chinese manufacturers boosted supply. Germany and Italy, the two biggest markets for the technology, have scaled back subsidies for renewable energy.

 

Indian manufacturers received almost no orders for the more than 700 megawatts of sun-powered capacity under construction in the nation last year and have idled their factories, Subramanya said in an interview in December.

 

Tata Power Co. (TPWR), the utility arm of the industrial group that owns Jaguar Land Rover, agreed to buy out BP Plc (BP/)’s stake in the Indian joint venture in December after the British oil company said it was winding down its solar business worldwide.

 

Prices of silicon-based panels plunged 47 percent in the past year, helping to tip at least seven U.S. and German manufacturers into bankruptcy.

 

(The article is original posted on Bloomberg.com (see the link) by Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai.)

 

 

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Floating Solar power plant on Narmada branch canal near Sanand…

Earlier this year, Tata power partnered with Sunengy, Australia to build the first floating solar plant in India. The construction of the pilot plant in India is expected to commence in August 2011.

The Punjab government in June this year approved the setting up of a project which will generate solar power by utilizing the space over irrigation canals in the state.

 

According to reports, Sanad is now gearing up to house yet another first-of-its-kind project – a solar power plant to be built on Narmada branch canal passing through the town.

As part of a novel concept mooted by the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, the Gujarat government has decided to install solar power panels on one km stretch of Narmada branch canal near Sanand.

“To be developed on public private partnership (PPP) model, the solar plant on Narmada branch canal would generate one Mw of power, once fully operational,” said a top government official.

Interestingly, the solar project is expected to save 100,000 litres of water a year by reducing evaporation of canal water in that particular stretch of one km. The entire stretch would be covered by solar panels, thereby reducing evaporation of water.

As per the industry estimates, a 1 Mw solar power project roughly requires five acres of land. “Installation of solar panels on river canals would also take care of land issue for solar power project,” the government official added. The state government has already roped in one of the leading companies in solar energy space. SunEdison, a subsidiary of US-based global solar energy player MEMC, will be executing the project near Sanand. “This is for the first time such a project is being developed in India,” said a senior official of SunEdison.

The state government has already cleared the project and a new company is being floated to develop the project. “There are different concepts being developed for solar power generation. Developing a solar power generation facility on the water canals is one of such concepts. But for any such effort, first of all a feasibility study needs to be carried out as it is entirely a different ball-game than the existing projects being developed in India,” says Pranav Mehta, founder chairman of Solar Energy Association.

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Tata BP Solar commissions 1 MW Solar PV Project…

According to reports, Tata BP Solar India, a joint venture of Tata Power and BP Solar, on Monday, said it has commissioned its first 1 megawatt (mw) solar photovoltaic power plant in Orissa under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).

The project, owned and developed by S. N. Mohanty at Cuttack in Orissa, was synchronized to the grid on 23 August, the company said in a statement issued here. “Tata BP Solar as an engineering, procurement and construction contractor in association with S. N. Mohanty is very proud in bringing about this first solar photovoltaic plant in Orissa,” the company’s chief executive officer, K. Subramanya, said.

The project, which is designed to run for 25 years, uses 4,400 crystalline silicon modules of 230 Watts each spread out over an area of 5 acres, which will generate electric current when solar radiation falls on them, the release said. The solar power plant is expected to generate 1.41 million units of electricity in the first year.

Tata BP Solar has also taken the contract to provide the operation and maintenance services to the plant for the first 10 years after commissioning, it said.

Mohanty has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Orissa State Electricity Board for 25 years to supply this power to them.

Tata BP Solar is currently executing projects in different parts of India including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand under the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) run scheme.

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