The Pandemic Has Taught Us A Lot Of Things Like The Need Of The Hour Is Resilient Infrastructure And A Dependable Power Sector, C Chaudhary, Amp Energy India

In an exclusive conversation with SolarQuarter INDIA, Mr.C.Chaudhary, Chief Operating
Officer, Amp Energy, a renewable energy developer has briefed us on utility scale solar projects in India. His updates on recent technology and trends will help the readers understand the sector in greater detail.

According to you, what are the current challenges and opportunities of the Solar Power Utility Sector In India? How can the challenges be faced?

Large scale utility solar has been instrumental in driving India’s solar growth story riding on the world’s largest clean energy expansion programme. The government is serious about promoting and adopting renewable energy and has demonstrated that very well in the last decade. However, for the next level of growth, it has to overcome a few challenges. Some of these issues have been persistent over the years such as delays in land acquisition process, policy uncertainty, lack of coordination between central and state government but a few contractual issues have developed off late such as cancelation of bids, PPAs not getting signed timely, ISTS substations are either not identified or are under construction, inordinate payment delays, tariff re-negotiations, some state discoms curtailing RE despite them being ‘must run’ plants etc.

How is Amp Energy planning to scale up its capacity in the near term? Please tell our readers about some of your upcoming projects.

Amp Energy India is well on track to double its capacity by 2021. We have built an industry leading team with a strong track record in line with our business strategy and have a unique capability to straddle Utility Scale RE projects, Power Markets, Battery Energy Storage and C&I RE projects in India and beyond. Amp is one of India’s first truly balanced IPP supplying renewable power to C&I and utility customers. We have been instrumental in developing some of India’s largest Distributed generation projects for Skoda Volkswagen India Pvt Ltd, Tata Hitachi and L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Ltd and are supplying power to customers across 8 sectors acting as a One Stop Shop for Energy for them.

Could you throw some light on how the solar industry is going to scale up in the near term?

The solar industry is definitely going to scale up further in the coming years with the government revising its target to 450GW of RE by 2030. But what is important to realise is that you must have your feet on the ground to get access to this massive energy dialogue. With the push for manufacturing towards creating an ecosystem, India has the potential to become a solar superpower with the right policies and framework in place. The states must be in complete alignment of the Centre’s plans and must aim for not just self- reliance but global dominance.

Read the full interview here: https://solarquarter.com/2021/01/16/solarquarter-india-december-2020-issue/