Manufacturing:  Though I focus only in current scenario of solar project development in Gujarat, It’s been unfair to avoid other aligned businesses with this new Gujarat solar industry.  We have seen tremendous growth and expertise built around solar PV as renewable industry since 2008 in Gujarat. There has been one solar pv module manufacturers in Gujarat two years back, today Gujarat got 9 already settled module manufacturers in the market beside 4 more business in pipeline.

EPC in full swing at Kutchh solar Power project- Movya Consultancy

EPC: There were no traditional EPC company even with little  knowhow of the solar project installation based out of Gujarat prior to 2009.  On INDIA level if you have observed, Most EPC’s of 2009-11 had little or No experience of building MW scale solar PV project, though they received contract with lower pricing but struggled to set up clients project in Gujarat. Not knowing the local risk factor involved for working in Gujarat environment, if my statistics are correct many EPC’s had very hard time completing project by having accrued high labor cost and out of state procured material cost. Working with these EPC Company, Today there are more than 12 Sub EPC contractors based out of Gujarat who got fine expertise built-up.   Today some of these mechanical and electrical Sub contractors have very much perfected speed versus quality work of solar project installation.  Thus today we are seeing atleast 4 full-scale Gujarat based EPC contractor who got very good hands on experience and labour force on ready to roll.

Land procurement: Definitely land procurement has been a big headache for solar project developers in last two phases. Even government backed Solar Park also went through some of these hiccups related to possessions and pinpointing right land parcel that was allotted to developers. Beside Heavy raining specifically had doomed project development plans of many EPCs and developers. In due time most of these issues been resolved and thus major parts of project allotted were commissioned today and or on the verge of completion. Today you can see there are plenty of land banks has been created by local land bankers paving a way to get easy affordable and paper clear land parcels available on demand for setting up solar power project. In the next phase, few land bankers are bringing an option to lease land through affordable private leasing of a land for complete life of solar project which will speed up development  with bypassing land procurement bottlenecks for solar power generation project installation.

Next phase: Future of solar industry in Gujarat seems very bright as CM is very enthusiast on this renewable option to the energy. As announced many places, on April 19th, during Charnaka solar park inauguration, hoping Gujarat government will announce third phase allotment capacity, process of allotment and may be guideline to final application.

Current data: Time to see field data of existing solar PV project in operation, four more developer have started evacuation in March. Couple of other projects started functioning full capacity energy production and are now evacuating to his max capacity installation.

Interestingly most projects started producing on an average 25% more power compare to the February production data as one can understand summer is started settling in.  as days goes by for next three month, We will see some more increase in the output of every solar PV panel installed having clear sky and perfect lengthy summer day ( day time is now 13+  hours almost in Gujarat now).

Though, summer may not be all fairytale blessing for power productions for solar project developers in Gujarat.  The projects installed in or near to desert region definitely can expect dust storm (Big dust storm that stays for least 10-15 days stretch) likely to start during end of this month and continue till end of summer season. During the daytime this dust storm not only blocks 80% of direct sunlight creating sudden drop in power output, this nano size dust particles keeps hanging in the air for long long time and settles down over the panels very slowly every hour that continue for weeks requiring time squeezed panel cleaning schedule and O & M activity.  Apart from that, there more likely situation of grid transformer failure during every summer as observed in past.  Good news is, GETCO has learned a lot in last few years and Grid outage will be managed more efficiently this summer as I heard of.

Not so good news is, though 26 developers have started evacuating power to the grid, most developers have not seen the payment coming to this date. GUVNL is sincerely revalidating all documents related to project allotment, project financing and other necessary steps prior to release of first payments to this developers.

Below is the March 2012 data of power generation by solar PV power developers of Gujarat.

March solar Power Production Data- MOVYA Consultancy

Nilesh Patel is project consultant for solar PV and Solar Thermal power generation. He owns business Movya consultancy dealing in project consultancy, government liaison, Allotment, signed PPA/ Equity trading and Land banking. He is also independent freelancer expresses his understanding of current issues alike in various national and international magazines and newspaper. If you have questions on above article or business please contact him on Nilesh@movya.com. For his business visit http://www.movya.com/