Energetica India chats with Gaurav Sood, MD India, Solairedirect

Solairedirect, a French company, has made history in India’s Solar Industry by offering to sell solar power to the grid at just Rs.7.49/kWh. This clearly sends out a message that solar power has become competitive and needs to be looked as a major contributor to the country’s energy mix. It is affordable by industry & common people and the incentives and grants from the government will be phased out soon.

Bharat Vasandani from Energetica India spoke to Mr.Gaurav Sood, Managing Director, Solairedirect India to understand more on the reason behind these prices and the way forward. Mr.Gaurav said that the bidding price was an outcome of Solairedirect’s vertically-integrated business model, from module manufacturing to EPC and O&M and long term equity investing that allows for significant capex and cost reduction while trimming risks as well.
The company’s philosophy from the beginning has been to deliver most competitive kWh and make solar power within the reach of common man. Solairedirect through its operational track record of building and maintaining more than 120MWp power plants have learnt how to produce the most competitive kWh by optimizing capex, operational and financial costs. On account of our integrated business model and we have more room to manage costs.

Solairedirect would have been open to bid for more MW but the bank guarantee rules in India do not encourage faster scale in size”, pointed out Mr.Sood.
On future plans, Mr.Sood told Energetica India that Solairedirect would like to be amongst the leading IPP’s by offering competitive solar power through large scale PPA’s at competitive price to bankable off-takers like generators, DISCOM’s, private companies etc.

Solairedirect will also participate in other solar policies in India i.e. State Government initiatives in partnership with local companies. “Besides that, the REC model looks interesting and is being evaluated. If the enforcement of RPO regulations is addressed, the bankability of the REC based projects will be ensured attracting interest from investors and lenders.

In addition to the business model of Independent Power Producer, Solairedirect will be providing its bankable EPC offering to other solar developers which will surely not be the cheapest one but would definitely result in the cheapest kWh over the life of the project.