Sunrise in Gujarat April 2012-March 2013 in Review RESolve Energy Consultants, Chennai Sunrise in Gujarat Content Sunrise in Gujarat Executive Summary ...........................................................................................................................5 Solar in India .....................................................................................................................................7 Gujarat Solar update .........................................................................................................................9 Charanka Solar Park .......................................................................................................................9 Solar Plant performance ..................................................................................................................11 Ranking of Plants operational for at least 1 Year(Overall) ............................................................14 Ranking of Plants operational for at least 1 Year (Charanka Solar Park) .......................................17 Ranking of Plants operational for at least 1 Year (Outside Charanka Solar Park) ..........................18 Seasonal Characteristics..............................................................................................................20 Seasonal Characteristics – Charanka ...........................................................................................21 c-Si vs. TF .................................................................................................................................... 22 String inverter vs. Central inverter ..............................................................................................23 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................... 25 Interviews ....................................................................................................................................... 27 Siddharth Bhandari, Managing Director of ETain ImMODO Renewables Ltd. ...............................27 Chanchal Bhatnagar, National Manager (Business Development) at Power-One. .........................30 Annexure A - Details of Solar Power Project Developers who have signed PPA ................................32 Annexure B - Gujarat commissioning status .....................................................................................35 Contact Us ....................................................................................................................................... 38 Content 2 Sunrise in Gujarat Figures and Tables Sunrise in Gujarat Figure 1 - Renewables Installed Capacity (GW) ..................................................................................8 Figure 2 - District-wise projects .......................................................................................................10 Figure 3 - Seasonal Performance(All Gujarat) ..................................................................................20 Figure 4 - Seasonal Performance - Charanka ....................................................................................21 Figure 5 - Annual Generation and CUF (c-Si vs TF) ...........................................................................22 Figure 6 - Monthly Variation (c-Si vs TF) ..........................................................................................23 Figure 7 - String Vs Central Inverter .................................................................................................24 Table 1 - Generation(MWh) for the period April 2012-March 2013 ..................................................12 Table 2 - April 2012-March 2013 ......................................................................................................14 Table 3 - Ranking of Plants operational for at least 1 Year (Charanka Solar Park) .............................17 Table 4 - Ranking of Plants operational for at least 1 Year (Outside Charanka Solar Park) ................18 Table 5 - Project developers in Gujarat ............................................................................................33 Table 6 - Solar plants in Gujarat .......................................................................................................36 Figures and Tables 4 Sunrise in Gujarat Executive Summary Sunrise in Gujarat Executive Summary In May 2013, RESolve released a whitepaper with the ranking of solar projects in Gujarat based on the en- ergy generation data from SLDC for the calendar year 2012(January 2012 to December 12). It was the first attempt in the industry to collate information and do a comparative analysis of solar PV plant performance in the state of Gujarat. We received some very positive feedback from the industry for the whitepaper, especially from some lead- ing bankers, project developers, EPCs and component vendors. The whitepaper is now used as a reference document by many and has been quoted in a few industry conference presentations and has been covered in the international media. While the feedback was encouraging, we also received good suggestions for making the whitepaper better. One of the suggestions was to change the ranking from Calender year to Financial year. Based on this, we have updated the whitepaper for the period Financial year 2012-13(April 12 to March 13). The other feedback we received was that the ranking does not really help in benchmarking the plants unless more details like the module technology, inverter types and several other input parameters are available. In order to meet that objective, we gathered the details of the components used in the plants (including track- ing systems) and EPCs of the projects. In this whitepaper, a total of 50 plants totalling 665.64 MW have been ranked based on their annual yield(MWh/MW). All these plants have been operational for at least 1 year. Of these 50 plants, 15 plants are located in Charanka Solar Park and 35 plants outside Charanka. There is an overall ranking of the 50 plants and a separate ranking each, for plants in Charanka and outside Charanka. The module, inverters, tilt mechanism and EPC details are also available for several plants. But we would like to point out that knowing the module, inverter and EPC details is still not enough to benchmark the plants, because there are other variables that influence the performance of the plant. Some of them include the degree of design optimisation, quality of Balance of system components, build quality, and Operation and Maintenance. The more a developer is willing to spend, the better the quality of components will be. In short, what you get is what you pay for. With that in mind, we request you to go through the analysis carefully before drawing any inferences. The information about components and EPCs has been collated based on interviews with several industry stakeholders and publically available sources. We have taken utmost care to verify the authenticity of in- formation, but it is likely that some of the information need to be corrected. In case you come across such information, please let us know and we will be more than happy to correct them. We would once again like to acknowledge the work done by Mr. Jigneshbhai Shah and M/s Movya Consul- tancy Pvt. Ltd, Ahmedabad, India which has been used in this report. Executive Summary 6 Sunrise in Gujarat Solar in India Sunrise in Gujarat Solar in India The total solar power installed capacity in India stood at of renewable power installed capacity (Source MNRE). 1.686 GW as of 31st March 2013 out of a total of 28 GW The breakup of the capacities is given below. Figure 1 - Renewables Installed Capacity (GW) Solar in India 8 Sunrise in Gujarat Gujarat Solar update Sunrise in Gujarat Gujarat Solar update Gujarat signed Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to- As of 31 March 2013, 77 projects totalling 852.31 MW wards a total 968.5 MW of installed capacity towards end were commissioned and operational. The complete list of of 2010 and early 2011. The full list of project developers projects is enclosed in Annexure B. is available in Annexure A. District-wise projects The Charanka Solar park is spread over about 2000 Hect- to set up solar plants of a total 500 MW capacity. Of this, ares in the wastelands of the Rann of Kutch. The Rann 214 MW has been installed by 21 developers. (As of 19 of Kutch is a salt marsh at the edge of Thar Desert, and April 2012 – Source: GPCL) it borders Pakistan. The total area available can be used Note: More details about Charanka Solar Park are available in the first edition of the whitepaper http://bit.ly/19IwHJO Figure 2 - District-wise projects Gujarat Solar Update 10 Sunrise in Gujarat Solar Plant performance Sunrise in Gujarat Solar Plant performance The below sections aim to quantify the performance of power system. The formula for CUF is given below. the solar power plants set up in the state of Gujarat. For Capacity Utilisation Factor (CUF) =Energy measured (kWh) the purposes of evaluation, the generation data available / (365*24*installed capacity of the plant). from the Gujarat State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC) has been used. Ranking of the power plants has been done While the Gujarat Energy Development Agency(GEDA) on the basis of the Plant Load Factor (PLF) or Capacity Uti- has shared a list of 77 commissioned projects totally 852 lization Factor (CUF). PLF or CUF is calculated as the ratio MW as of March 31,2013, the SLDC data is available