India has huge untapped solar off-grid opportunities, given its ability to provide energy to vast untapped remote rural areas, the scope of providing backup power to cell towers and its inherent potential to replace precious fossil fuels, said Semiconductor Equipment Materials International (SEMI)

“The solar PV off-grid opportunities in India are huge, given the fact that over 400 million people do not have access to grid connected electricity”, Sathya Prasad,President SEMI India said.
The off-grid opportunities are significant, given the cost involved in off-grid applications when compared to huge financial investments to be made to set up grids.

Moreover, specific government incentives to promote off-grid applications, rapid expansion of wireless telecom and telecom companies’ desire to reduce operating cost for base stations are also expected to prompt growth in off-grid opportunities.

The potential of replacing huge usage of kerosene used for lighting rural homes makes off-grid applications desirable. Off-grid PV application examples include remote village electrification, power irrigation pumpsets, telecom towers, back up power generation, captive power generation and city, street, billboard and highway lighting.

The government’s solar mission envisages off-grid applications reaching 2,000 Mw by 2022 and deploying 20 million solar lighting systems for rural areas, Prasad said.

“However, rapid increase in the market will happen when entrepreneurs and firms tackle unmet needs of the segment and deliver solutions targetted at satisfying the requirements at a market sustainable prices”, he said.

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