•Vol - 02 / 10
OP-ED
OCTOBER 2020
46
GREEN ENERGY
Manoj Kodakkatery
Manager Business Development, OMRON Electronic & Mechanical Components Business Division, India
Adoption in India – manufacturers should make the PV & EV equipment more affordable ! With the rising demand of energy (expected to reach 15,820 TWh by 2040)*, renewable resources are set to play a very important and vital role for India’s economic and overall development. Reports** indicate that the share of renewable energy is expected to account for 55 per cent of the total installed power capacity by 2030 with a capacity of around 500 GW. Talking about renewables, it’s imperative to mention solar energy. India is recognized as the third largest market for solar. The country aims for installing 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. Solar Energy is envisioned to play a significant role in industrial segments especially the energy-intensive industries which require large amount of electricity to run heavy equipment and enable heating & cooling systems. If replaced with a solar energy source, these industrial activities have a huge potential for significant cost saving as well as the ecological burden in the long run. Looking at the sector’s evolution and its adoption in the industrial sector, it seems there is a considerable progress over the last few years. However, there is a long way to go owing to macro and micro level challenges. Absence of a steady stream of investments is one of the macro challenges to help flourish the sector in the desired manner. As of now,
the sector has not been able to attract a significant FDI and so it’s more dependent on domestic investments. And the domestic manufacturing ecosystem is yet to become strong and lessen its dependence on imports for capacity addition. At the micro level, one of the most notable challenges is cost effectiveness. This quest towards cost effectiveness, is a collated impact of all the stages involved in the supply chain, however, looking at it closely, it arises right from the product level. The whole design of the product impacts the cost effectiveness significantly. It is essential to gain effective cost competitiveness in order to make the whole proposition compete well and be at par with other energy generation technologies. One of the most difficult challenges faced by the renewable energy equipment makers (read PV & EV) is to deal with heat emission and heat dissipation. This leads to not only higher costs but also fire hazards, frequent maintenance, reduced warranty and even total system failures. Being one of the leading players in the electronic components segment in the country, OMRON has recently unveiled an advanced portfolio of Relays exclusively for the energy sector. The relays, targeting at the PV & EV industry equipment makers, bring in immense value in minimizing the cost of the solution which in turn plays a great role in increasing its adoption
