Energetica India Magazine - September 2022

technologies that the world and India will work with in times to come. Q How has the rupee devaluation af- fected the solar industry and your business? Rahul Bhutiani: The Indian solar in- dustry is reeling under pressure cre- ated by rising raw material prices pri- marily driven by the Polysilicon price spurt and commodity prices surge. The World’s geo-political situation trig- gered rises in Crude prices and that has led to an impact on our Rupee. This de- valuation has resulted in a further im- pact on Module prices since a lot of the raw materials are imported and lead to a very strong linkage to dollar Rupee movements. To the extent, a company exports its products, there could be a natural hedge against dollar Rupee fluctua- tions. However, for domestic sales, the impact of the dollar Rupee movement is challenging. Q What kind of growth do you see coming in the residential sector de- mand? Rahul Bhutiani: The Indian Govern- ment has been very proactive in creat- ing a very positive environment for the Residential Rooftop Solar market. The schemes announced and implement- ed and also under implementation are very generous and should ensure good participation by the Residential sec- tor. MNRE’s grid-connected rooftop solar program is aiming for residential installation of 4 GW and offers a 40% subsidy for the first 3 kW of generation capacity in residential rooftop systems. Estimates suggest that Residential Rooftop installations are only 17% of total rooftop solar capacity and just 2.9% of the nation’s total solar capac- ity. Only around 0.5% of independent urban homes have installed rooftop solar which clearly shows the poten- tial for Rooftop Solar in the residential sector. The major deterrents till now have been consumer inhibition and low awareness about the technical, finan- cial, and operational aspects of instal- lations, and the industry and Govern- ment are addressing this appropriately. Q What are the cost and raw materi- al challenges for solar modules and solar cells? Rahul Bhutiani: China’s share in the entire supply chain – all stages from Polysilicon to Modules is in excess of 80% and for wafers is as high as 95% plus. Economies of scale, supply chain integration, innovation, and significant government support for the last 2 de- cades have made China a formidable force in the Solar Supply Chain. As a result, India like most other countries around the world is dependent on Chi- nese imports (wafers, cells, etc.) for Solar Module Manufacturing. This de- pendence does not augur well for the industry – always susceptible to dis- ruption in availability and prices. Our government’s intentions through the PLI scheme is clearly to slowly and steadily move away from this depen- dence on Chinese imports by encour- aging the Indian industry to create a domestic fully integrated supply chain that is capable of effectively meeting the domestic demand. Q Adani solar has expanded its busi- ness from manufacturing to re- tail distribution. What is the compa- ny’s strategy for the domestic market? Please explain. Rahul Bhutiani: Adani Solar PV mod- ules should be available to every indi- vidual customer across the country. In keeping with this objective, Adani Solar has built out a very robust retail distribution network comprising over 20 authorized channel partners, over 50 resellers, and through these part- ners, a reach of over 2500 integrators across the country. Adani Solar is committed to serving the domestic market wholeheartedly. Q Shed some light on Adani’s plans of developing domestic supply chain/backward integration including timeframe, investment etc. Rahul Bhutiani: The major setback faced by the Indian solar industry is the supply side constraints like the shortage of polysilicon, and glass, ba- sically, the supply of raw materials re- quired for the manufacture of cells and modules, increase in steel prices, alu- minum, copper, silver, shortage of con- tainers, freight spiral. India has no op- tion but backward integrate and build capacity for manufacturing the whole spectrum of Solar PV supply chain do- mestically to mitigate the risks arising from the supply chain constraints. Adani Solar has ambitious plans for the same. The backward integration at Adani solar will start with 2GW Ingot, 2GW Wafer along with cumu- lative 4GW cell and 4GW module by January 2024. And by January 2026, we look forward to becoming a 10GW fully integrated solar PV manufacturer from Polysilicon to Module. To support this massive upscaling and integration, we shall also develop a comprehensive ecosystem of ancillary units like Glass, EVA, Backsheet, etc. to reduce our im- port dependency and ensure a seamless supply of all the key raw materials. 24 energetica INDIA- September_2022 INTERVIEW