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Govt. should do away with all financial subsidies for the solar business Rays Experts, an early entrant to the solar sector in 2011, has been a quite and dependable performer. Focused mainly on EPC and rooftop work till recently, the firm just inaugurated the first 10 MW of its solar park in Haryana, a first for the state too. We spoke to Rahul Gupta, MD & CEO, who also founded the firm.
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Till now, the residential solar industry was marred by high CAPEX, lack of awareness, and unclear policies. Now, while these issues having been addressed to a great extent, I feel this segment has a long way to go.
Almost a decade since you started Rays Power Experts, has the industry growth and changes gone to plan for you? How do you look back at the past decade? Rahul Gupta: We started in solar industry when national solar
RAHUL GUPTA
MD and CEO, Rays Experts You have expressed optimism about the rooftop residential segment. What’s the basis for the same, considering how it has struggled so far Rahul Gupta: India has 330 Million Households. It is undoubt-
edly one of the biggest business opportunities present and hence it makes all the sense to be optimistic about it. Today the costs have fallen and subsidies are still present. States coming up with 40+MW tenders dedicated to the residential sector, and then banks making lending easy, it has all the reasons for the residential solar sector to flourish. The only hiccup is that there is no standard quality parameters or testing happening and bad work of some companies is creating hindrances for good players too. I would say that residential solar is still a sunrise industry and few companies will emerge to be big enough to make an impact in this opportunity. We see ourselves as one of the potential names in this aspect.
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mission had just started and hence consider myself lucky enough to witness several curves and trends this industry has had. We were always on our mission from day zero- Each individual should own solar plant in its own capacity. It was this drive only which made us start the first private solar park in the country and till date over 500 MWs have been commissioned in almost 9 solar parks. So, I would like to acknowledge that we are on the track we had thought. Though each business has its own ups and downs, we too had ours, but today, when we look at what we created, I feel it was worth the journey and I am happy we were stuck on our plans always. This industry has grown fast enough to be a textbook example for global solar scenario. While all major funds have invested in the Indian Solar business, the credibility, PPAs of our country have made me proud. When we compare the policy and process with other countries, I feel we are a more stable country and here the speed of work is far better than most of the western countries. At the same time, I feel disappointed to see that government support to small and distributed solar plants, mainly ground-mounted have been discouraging. A lot of people and companies want solar in their investment portfolio, but there is no such opportunity (except PMKUSUM, which was introduced a few months back). Moreover, a lot of small solar plants are struggling with payments and policy changes. This is where, I feel we as a country need to work a lot and make this industry much more stable and safe.
Where do you lie on the whole manufacturing debate of the need for high customs duty on top of SGD? What’s the best way out here? Rahul Gupta: I feel the imposition of BCD over and above the SGD is not productive. SGD in itself has not shown results, and
