Bringing Spanish Solar expertise to Indian grounds – Immodo Renewables
An Interview @REI 2016
There has been a tremendous influx of investments and market entry from international firms having solar offerings. The largest among these of course has been from solar panel manufacturers and solar inverters. Of late, at Solar Mango Consulting, we have also seen a significant amount of interest in entering the Indian market shown by IPPs and sub component makers.
Spanish firm – Immodo Renewables’ entry into Indian solar sector is one such example.
Immodo Renewables is one of the top 10 solar energy producers (IPP) in Spain and has it footprint in international market as well with successful operations in various continents – North and South Americas, South Africa, Europe and India.
Immodo was founded in the year 2005, at the peak of renewable energy growth in Spain. Not just in energy generation, Immodo is also a key player in the O&M market, operating under the brand – Immodo Energy Services Corporation. They also have a separate entity – Immodo RentaSol – catering to the Spain OPEX market.
ImMODO Solar has developed more than 220 photovoltaic MW, has constructed 66MW and is currently operating 70 MW of its own and of third parties. In India, they have developed a 15 MW ground mounted solar park called Palace solar park inside the Charanka Solar Park, Gujarat. While they exited this investment by selling it to Aditya Birla group, they still continue to do O&M for the park.
Immodo entered India through their Gujarat based JV partner – Electrotherm India Ltd. Now they have dissolved the JV and on their own.
Solar Mango team was able to catch up with Mr.Pawan Sharma, India Director of Immodo Renewables for a brief interview during the recent REI Expo 2016, held at Noida. A quick snapshot of the interview is given below:
Interview with Immodo Renewables
What are the key products and solutions Immodo Renewables provides to the Indian solar sector?
We are an IPP. We also do O&M services to large scale solar power plants. We will be developing around 100 MW of solar power plants before the end of 2017. We already have line up $20 mn equity investment for the same.
Which are the key end user segments for your products and solutions?
Government utilities are one of our key end users – as we mainly focus on large scale utility scale projects with Govt PPA. We work with Government corporations for utility scale solar pumping systems.
We also cater to Industrial and commercial sector stakeholders such as hospitals and institutions for large Rooftop solar projects under OPEX model.
What are the highlights and USPs of your products and solutions?
So far, we have never designed a solar power system with losses >1%. This is our USP. We are very strong when it comes to design expertise and this is what we would like to leverage for our Indian expansion too.
We also have our own solar monitoring systems that are far better than other solutions currently available in the market. Our monitoring system can bring in futuristic aspects too. For instance, it can say module 1 and 2 in array 3 will degrade in so and so year. This kind of precision is our competitive advantage.
One of our other USP is – we concentrate first on maximizing efficiency of existing systems then later on maximizing energy generation. In fact the first step in our business model itself is Energy Audit.
Any future products and solutions you are coming up with for the Indian market?
We are in the process of developing special inverters specific for rooftop applications. We have found out that utility scale solar pumping sector (>100 HP) is a largely untapped market in India. Hence, we will be focusing on this big segment.
What are the key learnings you have had from the Indian solar energy sector so far?
Financing of solar projects plays a vital role in any solar investment. It is good that there is a lot of positive energy in Indian solar sector overall. But without effective project financing mechanisms, it is tough to accelerate growth at the speed which Govt is targeting.
What, according to you, are the key challenges faced by the Indian Solar market?
Financial health of Discoms is posing a great challenge. Also, there is no organized detail on availability of land bank in most states. Hence it is hard for large scale investors like us. In 29 states, RPO implementation is very poor. This again is a big challenge to break through the Industrial and commercial sector.
To know more about Immodo Renewables,
Contact – Pawan Sharma, Director
Email – abhay@immodo.in
Website – http://www.immodosolar.com/immodo/en/#
