As of June 2015, PM Modi has made 20 foreign trips endorsing the “Make in India” movement and has returned back with promises. Well, one promise is on the way to being fulfilled, courtesy: Mr Masayoshi Son.
After having invested in Ola, Housing and Snapdeal, Son has vowed to bring in $20 billion over 10 years and invest the same in solar energy projects by partnering with Bharti’s Sunil Mittal and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology. This solar generation JV will be called SBG Cleantech. They plan to install at least 20GW (Gigawatts) of solar power generating facility in the coming 18-24 months.
The JV will soon come to life in a year and start producing solar power immediately after installation of the equipment, say the officials. Keeping the project in alignment with Modi’s 100GW target by 2022, Mr Son met with Modi to update him on the upcoming venture. A Modi fan himself, Mr Son was reported saying, “The project in India can be four times more efficient than Japan given the country has twice more sunshine than Japan while cost of setting up the infrastructure is half of that in Japan. This means it is four times more efficient in India.”
The operations of the JV will be looked over by former chief executive of Bharti Airtel, Mr Manoj Kohli and the chairman named is Raman Nanda who has been with Softbank.
With the team and finances ready, the entity is looking out for non-agricultural land, which according to many officials shouldn’t be a problem. With windmills and electricity generation stations still coming in short for the ever growing need of energy, solar energy is the need of the hour.
“India’s solar capacity has gone up from 18MW in 2010 to 4,000MW. Secondly, now that government has formally put forward a 100GW target, investors want to come in early and have the first-mover advantage. Thirdly, tech investors will see an opportunity because such a big market would require manufacturing capacity to be built domestically.”, informed Arunabha Ghosh who is the chief exec with the Council of energy, environment and water.
There still exist many places in India, where the electrical grid hasn’t debuted the landscape. For places like these, solar energy could be the answer. As of now, solar power is being used in water pumps replacing the diesel powered water pumps. There have been roughly 21 photovoltaic solar power plants installed already which combined have a 514 MW capacity as compared to the target 100GW requirement and surprisingly India is the first country in the world to set up a dedicated ministry for management of Renewable energy.
The best part of solar energy is that it’s clean and causes no pollution. Solar energy can be generated even on mildly cloudy days and the set-up procedure they say is a child’s play. The markets are sure to trade in green with the Japanese Buffet backing the Modi Sarkar and solar energy and you know it’s not a lie when they say, “India will become the next super power”
India needs solar power more than ever. Apart from foreign companies, domestic bodies too are taking great efforts in providing solar power to the country’s length and breadth. One of the biggest names in the renewable sources energy sector is Ratul Puri. Read what Ratul Puri has to say about India’s need for solar power here: http://goo.gl/s6Z8tF