Joint venture probes Indian solar

India’s Avantha Group Company, CG and French company CEA are to work together for 12 months to explore the potential of the Indian solar market.

LITEN is a European research institute, part of CEA Tech, the R&D wing of CEA. It is involved in setting up collaborative projects with partners around the world.

The joint initiative will focus on the possibility of solar systems at Indian airports, which require backup energy sources.

The use of solar with battery backup could enable airports to switch from using diesel generators reducing carbon emissions and cutting costs.

The agreement was announced at the recent India-France business summit in Chandigarh.

Initially, no capital investment is needed but if the study proves positive the companies plan to set up manufacturing facilities.

CG’s chief executive Laurent Demortier said: “We are thrilled to collaborate with CEA. The CEA technology is the most advanced in the renewable sector, combined with the CG capacity to fully industrialise and localise this technology in India, I do believe that we will both build competitive solutions meeting the needs of our customers in India.”

The Indian government wants to achieve 100GW of solar power generation by 2022. The country currently has less than 6GW. It is estimated that airports could provide over 500MW of solar generation alone.

 Image: Solar system (sxc)