Developers have had a tough time dealing with the increase in cost of equipment and lower tariffs.

Puneet Jaggi

- Founder, Prescinto Technologies

What contributory role Prescinto has been playing to meet thie solar target and how prepared is the entire eco-system?

Firstly, we have to laud the initiative of the central government which aims to increase the share of solar and wind energy in the total energy mix. The past two decades have been about the reduction in solar and wind power tariffs due to the drop in equipment prices. Having bid aggressively in solar power auctions in recent years, solar power companies are finding it difficult to make reasonable returns from projects. We believe that the future is going to be about tapping into the full potential of renewable energy assets. Prescinto, in that regard, helps solar project owners, developers, and operators by providing them a Software as a Service (SaaS) based platform that allows them to monitor and optimize the performance of their solar projects. The Prescinto platform gives its users deep insight into the causes of generation loss by bucketing them into categories such as soiling, downtime, and systemic, etc. This information is converted into work orders which are automatically sent to the site teams, thereby boosting plant generation as well as efficiency of human resources.

What is the investment scenario in this space and what supportive regulatory and policy reforms we need to fast track the solar energy projects?

 Over the last 5 years, the Indian renewable energy sector has garnered consistent traction from international and domestic investors with an annual investment of around $10 billion to $11 billion. However, these numbers are still a fraction compared to countries like China and the United States. As India focuses on ramping up its manufacturing sector, power demand is set to rise, and we could certainly attract more capital for the Indian RE sector as well. This is where the $80 billion investment that the government is planning to attract over the next four years will help. As far as regulatory or policy support is concerned, the government has set up an infrastructure for quick and transparent allocation of projects. However, project developers have faced issues with respect to land acquisition, post bidding tariff negotiations, payment collection delays, and delays in signing PPA with state discoms. The government is working on improving the financial health of discoms, and hopefully, as the industry matures.

What is the scope for wind-solar hybrid solution)? What are the integration challenges?

As we know that solar and wind are both intermittent sources of power and both are available at specific time periods of the day. The upside for WSH systems is that they can act as a consistent source of power as solar is produced during the day, while wind power is typically strongest at night. In late 2020, Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) allocated a 1.2 GW WSH project with a competitive tariff of Rs. 2.41/kWh. This shows that there is a large interest from developers in the segment as well. But WSH projects are still in the early stages in India, and we are yet to see large-scale implementation. However, prospects for hybrid projects seem promising

What is your assessment on the impact of newly proposed BCD on the sector?

This year the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) announced that basic customs duty (BCD) on imported solar cells will be levied at 25% and modules at 40% starting April 1, 2022. While we feel that domestic cell, module manufacturers, and project developers need protection from cheap and sometimes unreliable products from international markets, there needs to be a balance. This would be
the third change in the duties regime in the last four years. Developers have had a tough time dealing with the increase in the cost of equipment vis-à-vis the tariffs they have quoted for solar projects. In addition, developers are also having issues with reimbursements that were to be provided to them under the change in law clause in solar tenders allocated in the past. A further hike in duties may cause solar tariffs to inch up and also hamper the government targets for solar project deployment. More importantly, the Indian manufacturing ecosystem for solar cells and modules is not yet fully backward integrated, there is still a large dependence on Chinese raw material suppliers. So, we believe that in the short term new duties may benefit domestic manufacturers, project developers may have a tough time bidding for projects. 

How do you assess the growth prospects of solar and storage pairing, and how competitive are the regulatory platforms catalysing the growth?

To ensure that power is always available on-demand, the renewable energy industry will have to add the storage component eventually and we too are looking at developments in the segment closely. While storage is expected to solve the problem of intermittency, battery storage for grid-scale applications remains very expensive especially for a market like India. At the moment there is a lack of regulatory support in India for large-scale solar plus storage. Also, there aren't enough solar plus storage projects deployed in the country, therefore we do not have enough practical data to analyze viability. For larger, more effective, and sustainable deployment of renewable energy projects, storage will be a must. That will only happen as battery costs come down and is supported by the government's policy framework.

What are the critical challenges the country is facing in bringing solar energy to scale?

India now has around 35 GW capacity of solar energy projects installed in the country, whereas we were at a mere 6 GW around six years ago. Therefore, solar energy projects have scaled to an extent. But we are seeing some plateauing of newer capacity addition due to policy implementation challenges, in addition, we faced major deployment issues in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The major issue we are seeing is with state DISCOMS as highlighted before. In addition, change in policy such a BCD, difficulties acquiring land, and securing evacuation infrastructure continue to be hurdles that the industry tries to maneuverer around. 

What is the impact IoT &Big Data on solar industry? How have you been able leverage the edge in your projects and back up support areas etc.?

AI/ML and Data Analytics are the pillars around which we have founded the Prescinto. These technologies have a bright future in the renewable energy domain. We expect that project developers, owners, and operators will be relying on data analytics for operations and maintenance automation in the near future. On the generation side, key aspects for RE generators such as meteorological data, plant performance monitoring, and workflow automation can be addressed using platforms such as Prescinto, which uses AI to generate actionable insights. This in turn translates into higher profitability and better returns for asset owners and operators. On the demand side, the prediction capabilities of AI will lead to improved forecasting and asset management as well. Relying on technologies such as IoT, sensors, and big data, AI holds a promising future in the renewable energy domain.

What is your current footprint in utility scale and rooftop projects? Also tell us about the outlook and your road map for the next couple of years?

Prescinto has been deployed on around 9 GW capacity of utility-scale solar projects around the world. Prescinto has been recognized amongst the Top 10 AI startups by Stellaris Venture Partners and IFC as well as awarded the RE Assets Award for the best data Analytics platform by the Solar Quarter.

Hits: 240