DAY 1

Introduction to the Summit

Mercom India’s leadership team, in an exclusive presentation, provided an overview of the Indian solar market landscape along with the latest developments on-the-ground, key trends shaping the market, policy implications, and short-term and longer-term outlook, laying the ground for the sessions that follow.

Mercom Keynote – State of the Indian Solar Market 

Networking Break

With the Government’s ‘Make in India’ policy, new module technologies, pricing fluctuations, supply chain issues – how are project developers and manufacturers handling all this under tremendous cost pressures? How are Indian manufacturers gearing up to set up new production units backed by government push led by a production-linked incentive program? What strategies are international suppliers implementing to ensure they are a part of the solar growth story in India.

Amitesh Kumar Sinha

Ranjit Gupta

Avinash Hiranandani

Daniel Liu

Solar Modules to Make or Not to Make in India?

Juggling the macroeconomic priorities of protecting distribution companies while expanding renewables in the energy mix has led to many policy inconsistencies and flip-flops, which have proved to be the biggest challenges in the sector, leaving the developers and manufacturers confused, and calculations in flux. Addressing unsigned power sale agreements and renegotiating power purchase agreements, cancellation of auctions, and misinterpretation of clauses, the panel discussed the bottlenecks and possible solutions.

S.K. Mishra

Parag Sharma

Prashant Sinha

Aditya K Singh

Policy Flip Flops Between Intention and Action – The Cog in the Solar Growth Story

India is an attractive solar market with tremendous long-term potential. The installation targets are aggressive, but investments in the solar sector have been stymied because of the counterparty credit risk from distribution companies. What will the future of electric utilities look like in an age of widespread distributed generation? 

The challenges are well known, and the panel discussed the best path forward for DISCOMs – from privatization, new regulations, RPO enforcement, payment guarantees, to provisions in the Electricity Act – that can boost investor confidence and unlock billions of investment dollars sitting on the sidelines.

Dr. Praveer Sinha

Manoj Kumar Agrawal

Anshuman Gupta

Dr. Manish Karna

DISCOMs – The Weakest Link or Unrealized Potential in the Indian Power Sector 

Development timelines and deadlines are crucial for solar projects. But this development path is more often staggered with uncertainty. Land acquisition, transmission availability, approvals, and disputes…the list goes on. This panel, made up of developers and government regulators, discussed the issues and share ideas to resolve them. 

It also addressed some of the pervasive issues like the price volatility of components, challenges in design and BoS, the certification process and bottlenecks, and the global pressure on local markets and prices.

Aniruddha Kumar

Sandeep Kashyap

Ashok Pal

Rohit Bhandari

Solar Project Development – Work in Progress and the Path Ahead

DAY 2

Solar project acquisitions have soared globally, and they can take off in India too. There are more dollars chasing assets than there are good projects to buy. Solar project acquisitions are vital for developers as it allows them to recycle capital and invest back into newer projects providing much needed liquidity. Developers and investors will address how solar projects can be made more attractive and easy to acquire. We also had international investors share what they are looking for.

Anupam Misra

Rahul Varshney

Sreekumar Chatra

Project M&A – Quality Solar Assets Are in High Demand

This discussion focused on how to accelerate the deployment of rooftop solar PV systems in India and what lessons India can incorporate from successful and high-growth rooftop markets like Australia and Vietnam. Industry stakeholders participated in a dialogue and share ideas on how to facilitate growth in the rooftop market and how to address challenges when dealing with DISCOMs.

Abhishek Ranjan

Pinaki Bhattacharyya

Shishir Singh

J.J. Gandhi

Can Rooftop Solar Come out of Ground Mount’s Shadow and Be The Next Big Thing?

Mercom India projects of the year highlighted the year’s most outstanding solar projects in various categories.

Mercom India Solar Awards 2021

If there is one thing consistent in the last few years, it is uncertainty. The solar market is witnessing more supply chain and logistics problems now than ever. These challenges are going to play an important role in determining project costs and auction tariffs. The panel sheds light on issues like logistics, procurement, raw materials availability, freight charges, and other frequent surprises in the supply chain and addressed how best to handle them.

Sandeep Shivhare

Harshvardhan Govil

Pradeep Kumar

Bimal Jindal

The Black Swan: Supply Chain and How to Mitigate Market Surprises 

This panel focused on the robust pipeline of tenders and auctions and what can be expected in the foreseeable future. 

We heard how developers are preparing for the future pipeline along with the transmission utilities. The discussion addressed what the implementing agencies are doing to ensure the tenders are structured well, so they receive a good response. Are extremely low bids a positive development? If so, why do auctions get canceled every time there is a record low bid? How do we avoid this cycle that slows auction activity?

Sanjay Sharma

S.S. Mishra

Lakshminarayanan

Ashish Tiwari

Tenders and Auctions – From Pipeline to PPAs, How We Get There

This session brought together investors and developers to discuss the challenges involved in financing solar projects. The panel discussed the barriers and also the incentives to invest in India over other markets. How do projects in India tap into foreign funds looking to invest in an era when money is cheap and abundant? Watch the discussion to hear from investor and developer perspectives.

Hitesh Paliwal

Chintan Shah

Ben Fraser

Dr. Martin Lux

Project Financing – Solving the Jigsaw Puzzle

THE PRE-EMINENT SOLAR CONFERENCE ADDRESSED ON-THE-GROUND REALITIES AND MARKET OUTLOOK AMID THE RAPID ENERGY TRANSFORMATION IN INDIA.

Welcome to India’s premier solar event. This event was hosted by Mercom India, the leading clean energy research and media firm recognized worldwide for its expertise in renewable energy.

Mercom is widely recognized for its leadership and influence in helping shape India’s rapidly growing clean energy markets. We brought that expertise to a new platform with the launch of Mercom India Events.

Mercom India Solar Summit is our flagship event and brought together industry leaders to share insights and advance the course of India’s solar industry. With extensive opportunities to network and exchange ideas, the Mercom India Solar Summit is the go-to event to engage stakeholders at all levels.

The Solar Summit showcased Mercom India’s research and shared views and opinions of industry leaders, manufacturers, project developers, installers, government agencies, and financial institutions. The summit dug deep into the current topics – domestic manufacturing, supply chain issues, financing, and policies – and addressed how this will affect the market outlook for 2021.

Mercom India Solar Summit is our flagship event and brought together industry leaders to share insights and advance the course of India’s solar industry. With extensive opportunities to network and exchange ideas, Mercom India Solar Summit is the go-to event to engage stakeholders at all levels.