Commissioning Efficient Solar Energy for Smart Cities

How is Sun Alpha Energy impacting the power and energy market in India with its solutions?

SunAlpha has worked and excelled in almost every available solar module, inverter and optimiser technology available in the market. By pushing the boundaries with every project in terms of optimisation and execution efficient, SunAlpha has delivered time and again for its client leading to them seeking repeated solutions for each of their locations. Some of the unique and high impact solutions that SunAlpha has executed are as follows –

One of the earliest Genset Synchronised Solar Power Plants in India leading to more than 50% fuel savings.

Designing and optimising a building construction from foundation onwards such that is solar compatible from the design stage, that too without any additional investment.

Setting up a complex on grid, battery backed up plant with a Load Management System and Battery Management System installed along with Live synchronisations with the industry’s Diesel and Gas based Genset.

Solar industry knowledge among the masses has evolved very rapidly over the last few years. Around ten years ago, even a standard grid-connected system was a “highly technical” solution from clients’ perspective.

What strategies has kept the brand ahead of its market competitors?

From the very beginning, SunAlpha has been in the cutting edge on both technical and financial engineering for enabling power consumers to save by going solar.

By looking at the clients’ perspective and understanding their needs, SunAlpha has been able to deliver very clear and customised solutions to each client which has helped them take faster decisions and in turn start saving earlier. With high levels of Safety standards, SunAlpha has ensure that it stands out from the crowd by being a process and quality driven group. SunAlpha has also been a single window for all of a client’s solar needs, which has given comfort to clients.

In the rapidly changing scenario of the solar sector, SunAlpha has been very active and vocal in various Solar groups and associations so that it plays a part in maintaining the connect between the industry and policy.

What plans of expansion do you have in the future times? What business strategies are you adopting in a bid to take over the highly competitive market?

 SunAlpha has grown more than 3x year-on-year since incorporation. While maintaining such growth levels in the industry is challenging, SunAlpha has risen to the same and shown that high volume international standards of work can be done at reasonable rates. Our existing client are our biggest assets since they have encouraged, appreciated and pushed us forward.

SunAlpha has thrived in India, the cheapest solar market in the world. We are on course to expand internationally with its existing offices abroad in South East Asia and the Middle East. SunAlpha is also reinforcing business verticals within the group to become individual income-generating businesses.

What major challenges do you face while operating in Indian market? What method of mitigation do you observe to curb these challenges?

While there and multiple challenges at every level, I would like to highlight a few –

There are very ill-informed companies in the market who misguide clients both technically and commercially. This leads to a lot of time going into aligning clients’ thoughts to a high quality and corporate solar market. Awareness has always been a challenges. While some states have made good strides in improving the same, many states still have a long way to go. Another challenge is non-uniform policies in the states which make it difficult to get on ground permissions.

Do you also cater to government’s pet project as smart cities? Please elaborate.

Every SunAlpha solar plant is Smart Plant. We have played a part in the distributed generation initiative of the Smart Cities. Each of our plants are cloud connected and data monitors via SunAlpha’s Central Monitoring System. This helps in having a live record of solar generation which can be of importance to a DISCOM if collated.

What global trends do you observe in the solar power market and where is the Indian solar market in its contrast?

The share of distributed generation has been very high in international markets as compared to utility-scale solar. India has a lower ratio of distributed and utility-scale solar power plants. Solar as technology is perfect for a distributed approach due to its modular nature. India has been a late mover in the market as compared to European Nations, China or Japan. But with the high push sing the introduction of the Feed-In Tariff mechanism in 2010, Solar has grown by leaps and bounds. Manufacturing is still a laggard with India still importing more than 80% of the component value of a Solar Power Plant. In the coming years, Asset management and energy storage are going to play a key role and will be future growth drivers in India.