Highlights of 25th June Event "Informal Solar & Renewable Energy Meet" in Mumbai

The Informal Discussion on Solar And Renewable Energy Meet on 25th June 2011 was well received from the solar industry members with attending companies spread across the value chain.

The concept was to get industry focused companies/professionals together to discuss the industry challenges & opportunities, work together as partners, find business opportunities; all this and more within a room in 3 hours.  No seminars, no conferences and no speakers. Just pure business networking.

We would like to thank the companies that took out time from their schedule to participate in the event. These companies were:

1. Reliance Capital

2. Shrijee Group

3. SolPower

4. Photonix

5. Solomon & Co.

6. Global Green

7. ReNew Power

8. Greenergy Powers

9. Mott McDonald

10. Everest Engineering Works

11. India Ventures

12. Omega Point

13. Inovision Technologies

14. Indus 1 Advantage

Some of the topics of discussion included the recent statement of Mr.Modi, Gujarat’s Chief Minister of implementation of 100MW in Gujarat compared to 900MW of PPAs being signed; signaling an implementation success rate of less than15%.

Investors, present at the event, were of the opinion that the Gujarat government should start penalizing the PPA holders who have not achieved any significant progress on financial closure.  PPA holders seeking investment from foreign buyers have been not very thorough with their solar financial understanding, the due diligence process and the way funds / investors themselves need to raise capital from the market. Another reason has been the unrealistic valuations (read “premium”) and investment terms.  The recent premium rates discussed were Rs.15-Rs.20 lacs/MW for 5-15MW of solar projects at this stage. No buyer was willing to look at projects beyond this premium with deadline of Dec 31, 2011.

Meanwhile Mr.Khandwala, Director Photonix was very optimistic about the future of solar in India and is encouraged by the recent tie-up with P2Solar. Says Mr.Khandwala “Customers in India can now look forward to an end-to-end solution through a single channel of Photonix & P2: complete technical turnkey solution and financing”.

He also lauded the event and was keen to support it as a quarterly event.

Mr.Kapadia, ex- Manager from Tata Projects said that such sort of informal events help bring together interested professionals in the industry and can be used as a platform to create more awareness and exchange information & ideas.

Mr.Sachin, Director Shrijee Group was happy to meet SolPower, a potential client, in the event. They had been interacting only through emails and this personal meeting helped take ahead the discussion on working together.

Mr.Paresh Sheth, Founder of Indus 1 Advantage liked the concept of the event because he feels that such informal events are a good ground to meet companies & professionals and have a direct interaction with time and space on hand. This helps in better understanding of the on-the-ground situation compared to seminars and conferences. Mr.Sheth and me are working together to consult/ bring the technological expertise from outside India in the power space and also offer bank debt funding to solar power projects and to module manufacturers.

I will like to thank each and every one who managed to take out time from their busy schedule to participate in this event. We appreciate your support and encouragement and we look forward to making this a focused event with value addition as the main objective.

Special appreciation for Narsi from EAI and Vineet from Panchabuta for the event promotion.

Meanwhile, I will also try to upload the pictures as soon as possible.

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