We have tried this out in SEZs(tax breaks,holidays etc) but the same has turned out to be a miserable failure

Most of the panel manufacturing units are in SEZs and yet find survival difficult.The reason is obvious.When you import all the critical components from China(at high prices) and do assembly here,how can you compete against the same country which produces those components in GW scale and assembles in GW scale?Not in the next thousand years.Indian policy makers do not seem to realize this simple logic and yet seem to revel in some stupid third rate ‘Make in India’ rhetoric.I am seeing this disaster waiting to happen in the EV segment.Lithium Ion batteries and the battery management systems,the heart of the EVs, will end up being imported(at high prices),and yet we will dream to compete against the same countries which supply these systems,by doing mere assembly work.

Advances in Cell technologies

The upcoming global conference in Malaysia on March 14-15, 2017 will hopefully pave the way forward for global cell and module manufacturers among so many possibilities that have emerged over the last 2-3 years.Multi AlBSF,Mono AlBSF,Multi PERC(p type mainly),Mono PERC(p and n types),Black silicon,PERT,PERL etc etc.

What should be the dominant theme?Is simultaneous pursuit of objectives such as maximizing efficiency,minimizing LID effects,achieving cost-effectiveness and standardizing manufacturing processes possible?

Rooftop vs ground based solar plants

Makes sense encouraging roof top plants more than ground based large utility plants.Though, fundamentally, I do not see a difference except in the evacuation voltages.415 V vs 11 kV or above.That is how Germany developed its solar program.Above 70% of it’s solar installations are below 11 kV evacuation levels.But they had a robust FIT in place with strong implementation,as also the willingness of the roof top owners to participate.Roof top plants impose much lower strain on transmission grid infrastructure requirement.They make things much simpler to handle at the distribution level

Marketing vs Consumer awareness

Increasing levels of consumer awareness may lead to non-consumption of most of the products in the market.Does this mean failure of marketing?In other words,does marketing thrive on poor levels of consumer awareness?

No Hyperloop for India please

I see some orchestrated campaign for HL what appears to be a huge fad,at least for India.The costs are exorbitant bordering on the ridiculous,and can be ill-afforded by Indian public.There are other cheaper,fast enough and proven modes of transport.Whatever happened to the Concorde which could travel 2.1 Mach(much much faster than the Hyperloop) but went out of service for lack of demand?At a philosophical level,what would people do travelling so fast?Make money?Average labor productivity levels in India are pretty low,so spare time is not much money.Enjoy extra leisure time?One could do even sitting at home without the Hyperloop.

Can we create adequate jobs?

In which sector can we create jobs?

Agriculture?-The existing policies favor farmers moving away from agriculture(in my opinion a highly specialized field) to some stupid temporary manufacturing and NREGA backed digging jobs.It is unfortunate but wages under NREGA are more than the farm labor wages.When the whole of the developed world sees the next big revolution in agriculture,with pesticide free, fertilizer free, less water guzzling natural farming techniques using innovative data science and analytics,we want to kill the sector.

Manufacturing?- Has the ability to create large number of jobs,but growth has been terribly sluggish in the last few years,thanks to the Indian investor’s appetite for risk-free infrastructure projects which create mainly temporary construction workers .Foreigners who bring FDI in manufacturing into India will create very few jobs,due to automated plants and the ability to manage with very lean staff.

Service sector?-Has been plateauing since last few years,due to their inability to move up the value chain and create more jobs.

Indian lending agencies and policies have virtually killed the SMEs(most innovation takes place here and not in the large corporate sector),by favoring the large corporates who see the SMEs as a threat.

E F SCHUMACHER’S SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL is the way forward in India by creating intermediate technologies,using automation only as required,with accent purely on job creation.Otherwise, we will have to live larger inequalities and very little job creation.

Better norms required from MNRE for empanelment of channel partners and manufacturers

Click here for more details in PDF It is perhaps the third or the fourth list of complaints received from customers by MNRE about empanelled channel partners and manufacturers.The list as with the previous lists includes everyone from big names to small names in the solar PV industry.Shows the extent of trivialization and casual approach taken by most contractors when designing and selecting technologies and components.Many of the complaints remaining unattended for long periods, shows poor quality after-sales service. I have been writing about about this in my previous posts and elsewhere that it is high time that MNRE conducts exams along the lines of NABCEP, USA to certify roof top installers, and not merely go by the NETWORTH and CASH FLOW criteria of the firms in the fray.

What is surprising is about the systems installed in J&K,where almost all of them are stated to be poorly functioning or non-functioning,once again cutting across brand names.Temperatures in J&K are so ideal that the solar PV panels ought to have functioned at much higher efficiencies. At very low temperatures, open circuit and the MPP voltages do go up but not so substantially out-of-bounds for the inverters. In fact, even the inverters ought to have functioned better in lower temperatures.Snowing actually increases the albedo effect, and again c-si panels can show benefit by higher power output but only marginally from this effect.The only possible reasons for poor functioning as I see is:

a) The presence of highly overcast/cloudy skies throughout the year(highly unlikely),and crystalline silicon panels do have issues absorbing low diffuse irradiation.(CIS panels have better spectral response in these conditions but have other issues).The c-si panels need to be specially designed to show better weak light performance.

b) Extreme thermal cycling between high and low temperatures do lead to cracked cells,cracked cell to cell solder joints etc,unless specially designed.

Electricity supply will create its own demand

https://www.eia.gov/workingpapers/pdf/electricity_indicator.pdf shows correlation between growth in electricity use and GDP growth in the USA.Growth in electricity use should be a good leading indicator of the growth in economy,and in fact should show a good correlation with GDP growth, especially for developing nations such as India.So far,electricity use has never figured as an important indicator in the economic surveys.

The recent figures from the Indian Power Ministry show a slightly disturbing trend of a small but gradual decline in electricity consumption figures.Even the electricity supply has shown somewhat slower growth than expected.Reasons could be several from poor health of discoms, to stagnant aggregate demand, to constrained fuel supplies.

I have always believed that electricity supply creates its own demand for any country that wishes to rapidly develop, and India is no exception.Keep creating large electricity surplus for it will find many takers which in turn will spur industrial activity and growth.We saw this happening in the US, Japan and China in both the electricity sector and the road sector.All the initial spending in these sectors must necessarily be done by the government rather than the private sector, since such projects will necessarily be unviable in the initial years, but once created, will have a huge cascading effect on the economy.

Today, in India, we have a situation where the supply is planned to just about to match with the future demand projections(furnished by various industrial groups,industry associations and the MOUs which are on the verge of take-off), keeping some spinning reserves as extra.This could slow down industrial activity during rapid development phase.During this phase,any electricity demand calculation or projection can be spurious, unless the demand is in line with aggressive per capita consumption growth required to achieve what perhaps China has achieved over the last 10-15 years.

One can be happy showing surplus with hugely curtailed demand,and developing nations should avoid falling into this trap.

Designing solar PV plants for Indian conditions

Solar PV as a concept to reliably tap energy from the sun using photovoltaics, essentially evolved in Europe and the US. The equipment, product quality and testing protocols, system design and testing standards were developed by countries in Europe(mainly Germany) and the US, which other countries gradually adopted and adapted.We have been carefully studying the design protocols and standards such as IEC, UL, ASTM,ISO, and the data sheets of panels and inverters of reputed foreign vendors. We find that they ideally suit the ambient weather and grid conditions prevailing in Europe and the US. For example, temperatures, humidity and precipitation levels in Europe and most parts of the US(Places like Chicago do experience extremes but these are exceptions) do not reach extreme levels(especially on the higher side) we experience in India.Again,the skies are cloudy and tend to get diffuse in many parts of Europe, which impact the solar spectra,compared to the spectra of mostly clear skies in India(a few places in India do have very high diffuse conditions). The mean sun path and the angle of incidence differs for locations in the equatorial belt(most parts of India), giving it a slightly different Air Mass(AM), compared to those in the higher latitudes in the North.Then there are crucial differences in wind velocities which play a crucial role in cooling and ventilation of panels etc.

Do countries like India need to accept the STC conditions(25 deg C, and AM 1.5) as the de-facto standard for sun simulation testing?Do we need to tweak it to suit countries like India with generally hot and humid conditions?Does it make a difference? We have found that the correction factors for deviations from STC applied by standard software generally tend to overestimate the impacts of ambient conditions like India,and tend to understate the power outputs in some cases, and hence overstate PR, perhaps giving the equipment vendors an opportunity to claim superiority of their products.

We have been trying to develop comprehensive theoretical models, design templates and software which can capture impacts of all the weather and thermodynamic variables, to bring out realistic estimates of the power output and deterioration patterns over time, across technologies.

I will share a few more thoughts on panels, layouts, inverter efficiency and features, impact of grid conditions,system designs, Fill Factor(FF) deterioration for various technologies(for many people FF is a constant!), ideal green belt and vegetation for solar PV plants in my next few posts.

Indian agriculture vs Indian manufacturing

The next big ‘green revolution’ is predicted to happen in agriculture using data science and analytics. Ironically, it aims to correct the flaws, shortcomings and excesses of the first ‘green revolution’, by optimizing the use of pesticides, fertilizers and water, by preventing soil erosion,by promoting eco-friendly farming, by optimizing on cropping patterns using intelligent weather prediction and by hopefully stopping the indiscriminate use of hybrid and Bt seeds. Why was the first one touted as ‘green revolution’ if people had known all along that it had huge drawbacks? Was it because the only focus then was to help increase yields per hectare to feed additional mouths, largely ignoring whatever happened to the soil or the ecosystem? Again, quite ironically, the MNC firms who participated big time in the first revolution see this now as the next big opportunity.

If this is such a big opportunity and I am convinced that it is from what I have been reading and analyzing about agriculture over the years,why are Indian harebrained economists(some of them big names) repeatedly stressing the need for India (which was essentially an agri based economy till the mid 80s) to move away from the farm sector to manufacturing sector en masse? The myths they have been propagating over the years are so cliched some of which are :

1.Myth-Average farm holding size is very low for farmers to undertake any meaningful mechanization and improvement techniques.Hence the yields per hectare are low.

Reality-Nothing is farther from truth than this.Benefits of purely natural farming(not necessarily organic), with zero tillage,little water usage, using natural fertilizers and clever cropping patterns to suit seasons were highlighted by the great agricultural genius Masanobu Fukuoka who did some pioneering research on these aspects, and spelt them out in his book ‘One Straw Revolution’.He showed that such improvements are possible to be achieved even on small farms.The other advantages with his prescriptions are lower input costs and lesser dependence on usurious money lenders.The Indian government can create awareness programs using digital media. There are enough Indian agricultural research institutions to churn the humongous data they have and share the results with the farmers.

2.Myth-Farm productivity is in general lower than productivity in manufacturing sector.Farming as an activity pays lower than activity in the manufacturing sector.

Reality-Ideally, farming and manufacturing activities should not be viewed as substitutable comparable economic activities.Both the activities must co-exist.Farming has traditionally been an activity so close to the nature and the ecosystem, unlike manufacturing which is purely a skill based activity.Besides providing livelihood, a farmer gets emotionally attached to his farm.Using the data on weather intelligently and controlling input costs, farm productivity can be raised far beyond what it is today. The problem really lies in attempting to either convert it into a large scale cash cropping commercial activity(subjecting it to horrible vagaries of market) or else substitute it with manufacturing activity.

Manufacturing activity on the other hand is dependent for sustainability and viability on so external many factors such as:
a) infrastructure
b) skilled labor
c) supply chain logistics
d) market
e) operational efficiency
f) continuous product innovation and process improvement.

In fact, the latest data on top manufacturing firms in India as well as IIP figures show drops in volumes,Sales and EBIDTA from the previous year,also indicating that manufacturing productivity(loosely indicated by EBIDTA and other indicators) is declining. Investment in continuous product innovation and process improvement is a key driver in enhancing manufacturing productivity and growth, and unfortunately,the track record is not too encouraging.

Indian government must rethink on the land acquisition bill for rampant and mindless conversion of large tracts of at least somewhat productive farmland(which can now be made far more productive using data science) to manufacturing which is struggling as a sector to keep pace with international competition.Further, why waste time on skill development of farmers to fit them into manufacturing sector which is now struggling, and is unable to provide jobs to large number of already qualified but unemployed technical personnel? The farmers can be made to do far more intelligent farming with awareness programs.

India’s ambitious solar targets

100 GW target of solar by 2022, to 175 GW of renewables by 2022(announced at the UN by the PM) to the recent 250 GW of solar by 2030(targeted at IINDC), certainly speak of very ambitious RE targets.Assuming that to ensure a stable grid, a maximum of 15% of distributed energy sources(predominantly solar and wind) can be injected(given their intermittency) into the grid, are we talking of nearly seven times of 250 GW to be the overall generation by 2030? ie 1750GW?Minus the 250 GW of solar and maybe 200 GW perhaps of wind,we are talking about 1300 GW of fossil fuel based plants by 2030? Comparing about 39 GW of solar in Germany and about 27 GW of solar in China installed capacities with 250 GW Indian solar target, some very radical policy initiatives will be required.Is this a target worth pursuing in the first place? Even 100 GW of solar I thought was a huge over commitment, for that itself would have pushed the overall power generation to about 700 GW using the logic above, again by any standards a huge figure.

The only way I can see for the government is to consider the following radical options if at all they are serious about the solar targets :

1.Force the discoms to give highest priority to solar when buying power in the market(instead of the present merit order dispatch), through a legislation. Somewhat similar to what Germany is doing or even the New York City Mayor is proposing to do. At the same time, allow for dynamic pricing varying with the time of the day,so that solar is considerably less costly when the sun is shining the brightest during peaking power requirement.Some large coal and gas fired stations will need to be kept on reserve and will need to be brought in as required to fill the demand supply gaps.There could be huge issues of subsidies raised by the discoms which will need to be resolved.

2.Since solar will end up being a predominant source feeding into the grid, I guess the solar plants will end up governing the voltage and frequency of the local grids, with other plants forced to match, and solar plants will have to back down the last in case of an emergency.Not all grid-tie solar inverters should be allowed to back down at the same time(for this can lead to local grid collapse) and this can be achieved by designing and setting groups of inverters at slightly different frequencies from the normative frequency, but within the allowable range(Germany is already trying to implement this).

3.Somewhat similar to the agreements that some of the Scandinavian nations have with Germany etc for accepting the surplus power when not required by a host nation and supplying the surplus back to that nation whenever required,all the States in India can enter into such specific inter-state agreements(than go through a power exchange which can add to costs). Investments in costly back-up energy storage systems can be avoided.

Performance ratio(PR) and Capacity Utilization factor(CUF)

I find it quite amusing when I read articles on the net comparing Indian solar PV plants based purely on their annual CUF values, that too without normalizing for several other variables which can impact CUF. CUF values can vary with place which means the local weather conditions which in turn can mean variations in solar irradiation, temperature and humidity. There are white papers which show that solar irradiation can slightly vary even within a 5 km distance.O&M also matters in determining CUF. A badly operated and maintained plant will show a lower CUF. A plant with multiple MPPT inverter will perform slightly better than a single MPPT inverter. CUFs of plants in Rajasthan and Gujarat are normally expected to be higher than CUFs of plants in other parts of India. This is true provided we are comparing identical solar panel technologies as otherwise spectral responses of crystalline silicon,CIS and CdTe can vary drastically.

PR on the other seems to be a better measure of comparison, for it does away with the place variability. For example, a plant in Rajasthan can be compared with a plant in Alaska, because the ratio purely reflects performance based on design,layout,and component selection. But even here, one needs to be careful.The ratio takes into account the energy units what the plant ought to generate for a given place, and this is normally arrived based on historical ground data and satellite data irradiation, which can be hugely open to source credibility and interpretation. The ratio is also sensitive to O&M of the plant.A badly operated and maintained plant can show a lower PR.

If at all, one needs to undertake a study comparing PR and CUF values of plants,one needs to take into account all the possible variables and do a scientific normalization.