Lanco joins solar rush, a la RIL

HYDERABAD: Hitting the clean energy path, independent power producer and infrastructure player Lanco Infratech is preparing to join the great-Indian solar rush with plans to set up an end-to-end solar complex in Chennai.

“We are working out the final details and partners and will announce everything in a few days,” L Madhusudan Rao, chairman Lanco Infra told DNA Money.

While he refused to divulge the financials of the proposal, Rao said it will deal with the entire gamut of solar technologies including conventional crystalline and thin film technologies.

The move is more or less in line with Reliance Industries’ plan to set up a plant in Jamnagar at a cost Rs 11,631 crore to make polysilicon, single and multi-crystalline ingots, solar grade wafers, SPV modules. The 1 gigawatt capacity plant is expected to create jobs for 11,000 workers.

“There is no value if one does not go for end-to-end solutions. Therefore we do not want to be a intermediate player,” Rao added.

The Union government has already received seven proposals worth $16 billion for setting up manufacturing facilities for polysilicon, single and multi-crystalline ingots, wafers, solar cells, photovoltaic moduels, LCDs, systems-on-chip and IC assembly
units.

While Reliance Industries is going for the entire value chain, Videocon, MoserBaer PV Technologies, Titan Energy Systems, KSK Energy Venture and Signet Solar are setting up units to manufacture solar components.

The rush of proposals has come in the wake of the incentives package announced by the government late last year offering 20% of capital expenditure in the first 10 years for semiconductor projects in special economic zones (SEZs) and 25% of capital expenditure for non-SEZ units including financial subsidies and equity participation.

Ruling out Hyderabad for setting up the proposed solar complex, Rao said the unit would require huge raw material movements like sand for polysilicon manufacture, and modules apart from a huge land area.

“For logistics purposes, Hyderabad is not suited,” he added.

Meanwhile, Lanco has set up a new vertical for wind energy which is setting up a wind turbine manufacturing unit in Pondicherry, Rao said. The unit will manufacture turbines to generate 1,000 mw (500 units of 2 mw each), per year.

A capital investment of Rs 350 crore has been earmarked for the turbine manufacturing facility while an initial investment of another Rs 200 crore has been set aside for land.
Suzlon is the only other company in the country, which manufactures wind turbines with a capacity of 2,700 mw.

At the same time Lanco will also set up huge wind farms and is going around building land assets enough for generating 10,000 mw capacity over the next two years, Rao. Currently it has land assets to generate 3,000 mw he added explaining that each mw of wind would need 2-3 acres of land.

Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are the states where Lanco is looking for this land, he added. “We believe there is a good potential for growth and it is synergetic to our overall power business,” he said.

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