Energetica India Magazine - September 2022

energetica INDIA- September_2022 57 INTERVIEW house testing facility to manufacture quality inverters up to 1 MWh and along with 1GWh storage solutions. Q What is Invergy’s market USP as compared to its Indian peers? Deepak Pandey: Invergy has a full- fledged 3kW to 50kW solar hybrid in - verter and Energy storage product basket containing solar solutions for residential, Commercial & Industrial, and utility-scale projects and Storage Inverter Solutions. StrongR&Dbacking the inverter technology for the company provides a high sense of reliability, which leads to Invergy serving some of the ma- jor giants of the industry. The major USP of Invergy is that we be- lieve in sharing knowledge and not just marking sales. Invergy’s R&D team is dedicated to building smart, efficient, and intelligent inverters along with ex- cellent designs best suitable for harsh weather conditions. Also, Invergy pro- vides a lifetime free monitoring platform to customers which makes it easy to track your RoI. Q What market share will Invergy eye in the Indian market in the coming years? Deepak Pandey: The solar hybrid invert- er and storage market in India is domi- nated by commercial & residential scale segments. India being one of the largest solar markets globally, Invergy has al- ways focused on product quality and cus- tomer services being fruitfully awarded with regular building customer trust and increasing inverter supply in India focusing on the Indian solar market re- quirements, we are planning to lunch HV inverter series in its product basket. Thus, keeping inverter solutions up to date with market scenarios and technol- ogy drag along with dedicated services, we have plans to support a maximum number of solar players in India. Q Reasons behind entering the Indian market? Deepak Pandey: Since the world has faced the intermittent energy gap after additional energy sources are available. The storage market is found to be a vac- uum in the market. So online and offline energy requirements come together in the sector. Therefore, we have introduced the Hybrid inverter and provided ade- quate solutions to the beneficiary. Indian and overseasmarkets both need this kind of product in themarket. Q What will be the company’s expan- sion and investment plans in India in the next 2-3 years? Deepak Pandey: • Product availability at remotest level (covermore than 3 lakh villages). • Plan to achieve a revenue of more than USD25million. • Establish the state of art factory for Inverter and Storage (more thanUSD 18 million). • Opportunity to employmore than 1000 Persons. • 5 warehouses to cover the sales and ser- vice reach. Q In your view, what are the biggest challenges in the Indian rooftop so- lar industry?What could be their possible solutions? Deepak Pandey: Challenges include: Flip-Flopping Policies: Although many companies began using solar energy, flip-flopping (sudden real or apparent change of policy) policies remained a major hurdle, especially when it came to power distribution companies (Dis- coms). Industry executives point out that Rooftop Solar (RTS) was becoming attractive for several consumer segments when Discoms and state governments started tightening regulations for the sector. India’s Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council recently hiked the GST of many components of the solar system from 5% to 12%. It will increase RTS’ capital cost by 4-5%. Regulatory Framework: The growth of the RTS segment is highly dependent on the regulatory framework. Slow growth has been primarily caused by the ab- sence or withdrawal of state-level policy support for the RTS segment, especially for the business and industrial segment, which makes up the bulk of target con- sumers. Inconsistent Rules on Net and GrossMeteringNetmetering regulations are one of the major obstacles facing the sector. Low Financing: Commercial, institu- tional and residential sectors are keen to install grid-connected RTS by getting bank loans. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has advised banks to give loans for RTS at subsidized rates.However, nationalizedbanks hard- ly offer loans toRTS. Thus,manyprivate players have come into the market that offers loans for RTS at higher rates like 10-12%. The RTS needs easy financing, unrestricted net metering, and an easy regulatory process. Public Financial In- stitutions and other key lenders could be mandated to lend to the segment. Some of the existing bank lines of credit could be adapted to meet the challenges of the Indian RTS segment, making it more attractive todevelopers in this area.