India’s Moser Baer – a solar energy giant in making

Moser Baer Photo Voltaic’s current capacity is at 40MW and the company recently announced it’s aiming for 600MW by 2010. That’s a fifteen-fold increase in capacity! If you have been following solar production capacity announcements over the last couple of years, this will come as no surprise. This is even less of a surprise if you’ve been watching Moser Baer’s moves.

To get the 600MW capacity goal, MBPV has recently announced partnerships for sourcing wafers as well as production equipment. For multicrystalline silicon wafers, MBPV signed an agreement with the LDK Solar based in China. An unnamed equipment maker is to supply equipment adding 565MW of thin-film capacity. (I believe Applied Materials is that unnamed equipment maker.)

These are just the latest in a series of strategic moves MBPV has made since it’s parent Moser Baer India Ltd first announced its move into solar power in 2005. By the end of 2006, MBPV had made strategic equity investments in early-stage startups based on CPV (Solfocus, Solaria) and Multi-junction (Stion a.k.a. Nstructures) technologies with an eye to have access to a portfolio of cutting-edge technologies. Then came the acquisition of 40% stake in Solarvalue AG’s then wholly owned Slovenia-based silicon producing subsidiary. That along with the latest deal with LDK ensures that MBPV has access to high quality solar grade silicon.

In March 2007, it entered into a partnership with Applied Materials for equipment supply to enable rapid ramp up of thin-film capacity to coincide with the thin-film PV market growth from 250MW in 2007 to 2GB ($5bn) in 2010. So the unnamed equipment supplier in the latest capacity expansion (40MW to 600MW) announcement is almost certainly Applied Materials.

While MBPV is already supplying both mono- and multi-crystalline silicon cells and modules, it’s clear its long-term strategy is to gain market leadership by becoming a vehicle for rapid scale-up and cost reduction of next generation of solar technologies. Large area thin-films and concentrated PV (CPV) will enable it to target several markets: large-scale solar power plants, BIPV (building integrated PV) and, with the right cost and business model, even rural electrification. (In the medium-term I think large-scale solar is most attractive as it allows rapid ramp-up & cost reduction while benefiting from power purchase agreements (PPA’s), policy incentives, and carbon credits.)

By all measures, MBPV’s seems poised to be a long-term player. With India’s huge power-hungry domestic market at its doorstep, it almost certainly will grow into a global solar energy giant.

Cleantech VC and PE investment in India grows 58% in 2007

So says the Cleantech Group in its new report titled “Cleantech India Venture Capital and Private Equity Investment.” 2007 investments stood at $210 million when compared with just $133 million in 2006.

And finally, here is an interesting article by Alexis Madrigal at Earth2tech regarding Reliance Energy’s recent “cleaned out” IPO.

Israel and Sweden eye cleantech potential in India

Israel Business Arena reports that Granite Hacarmel Ltd has signed an MoU to invest $6 million of the initial $20 million investment to set up a company that will invest in renewable energy projects in India. Granite Haracmel is one of Israel’s largest holding companies with interests in energy, petroleum products, chemicals and infrastructure. It owns Sonol and GEC. GH itself is owned by the Azrieli Group.

According to Esmerk Swedish News, Sweden’s Minister for Enterprise & Energy, Maud Olofsson, has promoted the concept of sustainable cities during visits to India and China. She hopes to create opportunities for Swedish companies with relevant expertise in these huge markets.