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PV Project
Finance In India:
Working The
System
Ragna Schmidt-Haupt- Senior Investment and Strategy Advisor - Asia
GL Garrad Hassan
Although impressive, the deployment of utility scale photovoltaic (PV) in India has been hampered
by industry-specific and economy-wide factors not least the difficulty in accessing non-recourse
finance.Acceleration of Indias PV market depends on improved access to finance both from domestic
and international sources. Ragna Schmidt-Haupt from GL Garrad Hassan global renewable energy
consultancy provides examples and practical insights into how players can overcome the hurdles and
seize attractive opportunities in the idiosyncratic Indian solar market.
www.EQMagLive.com
potential of Indias
solar sector demands
Picture: solar radiation
a shift in the
resource assessment
station at Sadodar, Gujarat
approach to tackling
(GIZ India)
technical challenges.
Irradiationdata for
much of India is
poorand is mainly
based on satellite
data with limited
ground-based
measurement
-although this
situation is showing
signs of improvement
risk for an investor and may be the key to
with 51 stations
having already been installed by C-WET, project viability.
under an initiative of the MNRE. An additional
At the same time, an analysis of
60 monitoring stations are envisaged for
operational projects shows that assets are
2013 which will enable the monitoring on
currently under performing when compared
a larger scale and in a more precise manner
to international norms. Whether the culprit is
of direct normal irradiance, global horizontal
poor EPC completion or project operations
irradiation, diffuse horizontal irradiation and
is unclear but with operational services
direct normal irradiation, says IndradipMitra
from technical consultants readily available
from GIZs SolMap project.
to owners, there is no reason why assets
Most available satellite records extend should not be well managed.
back only 10 years which compares
In spite of the difficulties, project finance
unfavourably with the 20+years of data
is slowlymaking its way into the Indian solar
available for some more mature markets.
sector. Developers, who have successfully
Also, thelow resolutionof the data and quality
achieved non-recourse project finance
issues with installed measurement equipment
for solar projects include Sun edison and
add to the difficulty of producing bankable
Astonfields, both of whom have strong local
energy resource assessments.
and international experience in their project
This lack of understanding of the resource finance teams and banking networks.
knocks investor confidence infuture power
India is an idiosyncratic but potentially
production and is a major contributor to the
enormous market for solar PV. Only those
high cost of debt finance.Typically, lenders
developers who can be dynamic, innovative
build-in this uncertainty by using P90 values
and really understand the regulatory and
(the value which the out-turn production has
financial options as well as the resource
a 90% probability of exceeding) as their
potential of their project - can thrive. Some
performance input to their financial models.
will succeed in the market long enough to
The availability of bankable, site-specific
see a true PV debt market emerge.
resource estimates can seriously reduce the
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