Solar power: An exciting opportunity for India

Solar power has emerged as one of the key renewable sources and presents an exciting opportunity for India. In past few years, the solar PV industry has experienced substantial growth primarily driven by favourable policies of central and state governments to support its development. The Gujarat State Solar Policy and the Centre's Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) are at the forefront of solar power development in India. As a result, power generation capacities from solar have increased from 20 MW in FY'2011 to nearly 940 MW in FY'2012 and by June 2012 it crossed 1 GW. Most of the installed capacity over 600 MW comes from Gujarat.

States like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Maharashtra are emerging as more prominent future PV installation destination for developers and installers. These states have taken positive steps and introduced their own solar programmes as well as FITs, or are expected to announce their solar ambitions in the course of this year to exploit their solar potential.

Along with grid connected solar PV installation, Indian PV market represent huge potential for off-grid application too. The JNNSM programme targets off-grid electrification about 200 MW expected by 2013, 1 GW by 2017 and a cumulative installation over 2 GW until 2022. This exhibits huge potential market for off-grid, stand along and hybrid systems. This market segment that is quite specific to emerging markets could kick-off PV installations faster than expected.