Assessing the market potential of replacing / substituting captive power in process based industries with solar power, Developing a financial model for Persept Solar Pvt. Ltd.

Abstract

The study of the captive power market primarily involved exploration of the potential of solar energy substituting the generation capacity in heavy process based industries. The high grade heat and high peak power requirement in core processes of process based industries such as cement, glass, steel, aluminium, etc restricts the potential of usage of solar generation directly matching these requirements. However, we were able to find some fringe processes that required low power consumption as well as low peak power. For example, the potential in a cement plant in Gujarat (for these fringe processes) in the study carried out comes out to around 1.5 MW for the purpose of solar generation for 6 hours in a day (during peak sunlight) according to the module configuration of Persept Solar Pvt. Limited. The other areas of focus is Low Grade heat process based industries such as Textile industry, Food Processing industry, Pharmaceutical industry, Dairy Industry, Paper & pulp industry ,etc. Such domains are lucrative for the application of Solar based generation because of two fold reasons: 1. The captive set-up these plants can afford is primarily diesel fuelled which is far more costly that thermal and has become slightly costly than solar power now. 2. The initial capital involved for these firms will be close to zero based on the pay per use model by Persept Solar Pvt. Ltd The study of a food processing plant at Bangalore (paratha and batter making firm called Best Foods) yielded a total requirement of around 180 KW capacity to carry out its operations during day time. Another study for a textile unit headquartered in Mumbai (Nahar Textile) yielded a total requirement of 200 KW Solar PV panels. The study gives an exact number of REC modules required by Persept Solar Pvt Ltd, to implement solar PV set ups in these industries. The last part of the study being a financial model for any project being set up by Persept Solar Pvt. Ltd yielded higher profitability in case of claiming Renewable Energy certificates as compared to capital subsidy. The financial model is user interactive and is divided into modules to serve the needs of different capacity projects ranging from 50 KW- 5 MW. Financial Study section of the report contains Snapshots of the model.