-Amit Barve, General Manager - Solar, SCHOTT Glass India Pvt Ltd

SCHOTT Solar AG is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CHOTT AG and has a long history of 52 years in manufacturing components for solar industry with presence in solar photovoltaic well as solar thermal plants. SCHOTT Solar has been actively involved with local presence in Indian market for the past five years with offices in Mumbai and Pune. Amit Barve tells Venugopal Pillai about SCHOTT Solar's plans in the light of India's solar power ambitions.

To start with, please tell us about the various services that SCHOTT Solar offers in the solar power space.
SCHOTT Solar is an internationally operating manufacturer of high-quality solar products headquartered in Mainz, Germany. The company has more than 50 years of experience in solar technology and operates in two business segments. In the photovoltaic business segment, SCHOTT Solar produces solar wafers and solar cells as well as crystalline silicon modules and thin film modules. In the concentrated solar power business segment, the Company manufactures receivers for solar power plants with parabolic trough technology and is the worldwide market and technology leader in this field. SCHOTT Solar owns production facilities in Germany, Spain, USA, China and in the Czech Republic. Moreover, SCHOTT Solar has sales offices in all major markets. As a wholly-owned subsidiary the company also benefits from the international network of the SCHOTT Group, which employs close to 17,500 employees worldwide and generated sales of approximately 2.9 billion euros in the fiscal year 2009-10.

Tell us more about the new mono solar module that SCHOTT Solar plans to launch in 2012. Will it find applications in the Indian market?
The new mono-crystalline solar cell that our researchers have succeeded in developing in the industrial format of 156 x 156 mm offers efficiency of over 20 per cent for the first time ever. We feel this demonstrates quite clearly how an industry leader like SCHOTT Solar is capable of applying the expertise it has gained in more than three decades of development work on multicrystalline solar cells to mono-crystalline wafers as well. We are extremely excited about the prospects of being able to offer our customers all over the world such high efficiency rates. Indian customers are certainly welcome to explore the potential that our new module offers them. After all, relying on innovations that offer the highest possible performance is key to achieving high energy yields over the long term.

What are the major projects executed by SCHOTT Solar in India so far? India's National Solar Mission envisages a huge 1 GW of solar installations by 2013. How does SCHOTT Solar plan to tap into this big opportunity?
In the area of photovoltaics, Premier Solar India and SCHOTT Solar signed a contract to have 20 mw installed by their new EPC division, Premier Solar Power Tech, as part of a grid-connected ground mount system just a few months ago. This PV system will generate enough solar energy for more than 40,000 households. With respect to CSP, an industry we feel is preparing to take off in India. It is certainly worth mentioning that SCHOTT Solar has already supplied more than 600,000 receivers for solar power plants that use parabolic trough technology in many different regions of the world. Prime examples include the Andasol CSP plants in Spain and Nevada Solar One in the US.

We get a feeling that prices of solar photovoltaic equipment, mainly cells and modulesm have dropped over the recent years? What is your view?
Yes, that is quite correct, and SCHOTT Solar AG too has not remained untouched by the problem of global overcapacities in the solar market. Yet we have successfully demonstrated our power of innovation time and again - just recently by setting two world records at the same time at the PVSEC show and by announcing the new, high-performance MONO module. We are prepared to compete and firmly believe that we will continue to rank among the advanced companies in the PV industry in the future.

In very general terms, please tell us about the two principle modes of solar power generation-photovoltaic and solar thermal. In terms of efficiency and capital costs, how do they compare?
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology is particularly wellsuited for large-scale applications. CSP technology essentially converts sunlight into heat using parabolic trough power plants that consist of large rows of parabolic-shaped mirrors that concentrate solar radiation by as many as 80 times onto the receivers. As it heats up, a special heat-transfer oil is transported by a heat exchanger so it can create steam that drives traditional steam turbines. Thermal accumulators then see to it that electricity remains available, even at night.

Photovoltaics on the other hand refers to a method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity. Photovoltaic power generation relies on solar panels that consist of a number of solar cells that contain a photovoltaic material, mono-crystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon, or amorphous silicon, for instance.

Due to the fact that these two technologies address different needs, it is difficult to compare them.

We understand that the commercial feasibility of solar power plants depends a great deal on government incentives. In this reckoning, how sustainable is the industry on a long-term basis?
It is the declared goal of the solar industry to advance solar power to the point at which it will be able to compete with conventional sources of energy. In order to achieve this objective, solar manufacturers all over the world are working very hard to lower their production costs and, at the same time, significantly increase the efficiency of their modules. Funding instruments like feed-in tariffs can clearly be justified as a way of lowering our dependence on fossil fuels and protecting the environment in the near future, especially considering the significant progress that is being made in this area.

Does SCHOTT Solar eventually intend to set up a manufacturing facility in India?
It is hardly a secret that the global solar industry is currently faced with the problem of overcapacities, therefore priority should be given to utilizing existing capacities as effectively as possible. Nevertheless, India shows a very promising development regarding solar. We are watching the development of the Indian market very closely and will then make a decision appropriately.

Which countries currently account for a majority of your company's global revenues?
The German market is still go be the biggest one in 2012. Germany might be followed by Italy and then by US, UK, France and Spain. Outside Europe, we expect for example Israel, Australia and last but not least, India, to show an interesting development.

What has been SCHOTT Solar's experience over the past five years in India, and how does the future look to you?
Like India's ambitious growth plans, SCHOTT Solar is quite excited by the dynamic developments that have been taking place in India over the last few years. SCHOTT solar has also been growing consistently for last five years in India with growth in industry and now with arrival of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, we expect that India can take its place among the top drivers of solar growth.