KOLKATA (Commodity Online): India’s Vikram Group of Industries has set up the solar photovoltaic module manufacturing plant at Falta – Special Economic Zone with an initial investment of around Rs.100 crore.
The company proposes to start off with an initial capacity of 25 MW per annum. “We are already in the process of expanding its capacity to 50 MW by the middle of this year,” said HK Chaudhary, chairman, Vikram Group of Industries.
The company is developing the new capacity under the subsidiary Vikram Solar Private Limited, which has promoted a unit in Germany under the name, Vikram Solar GmbH for the latest technological up gradation and for establishing a brand name for Vikram Solar in the European Markets.
Vikram Solar is said to be the first Indian company to set a 1.05 MW Grid Interactive Solar power plant at Kottenheim, Germany.
Regarding future plans, the company has plans for backward integration in the form of wafer and photovoltaic cell manufacturing, within a short period, with a total capital outlay of Rs. 500 crores.
Vikram Solar, which employs more than 100 persons, will be able to provide employment to more than 800 persons directly and indirectly with a focus on skill development and training in the high technology solar industry.
In order to deliver solar power to non-grid areas, Vikram Solar has initiated an R & D project in collaboration with Bengal Engineering and Science University (BESU) for applied research in the field of long life Solar Battery Systems to sustain a life cycle of 15-20 years. Currently the available Lead-Acid Batteries have a life of 3-5 years. This initiative has been taken up under the MNRE research proposals for the development and demonstration of electricity storage systems.
McKinsey & Company, in its survey ended May 2009, stated that India has one of the world's highest solar intensities with an annual solar energy yield of 1,700 to 1,900 kilowatt hours per kilowatt peak (kWh/KWp) of the installed capacity. This is similar to the US and Hawaii, the other two countries which have been ranked first along with India.
India has a number of advantages over other countries for suitable conditions for solar power generation; dense population and high solar insulation are among a few. With about 300 clear sunny days in a year, India's theoretical solar power reception, just on its land area, is about 5000 trillion kilowatt per year, which is higher than current total energy consumption. Even assuming 14% conversion efficiency for PV modules, it will still be thousands of times greater than the likely electricity demand in India by the year 2015, Chaudhary mentioned.
(With inputs from IndiaPRwire.com)
