In an exclusive conversation with SolarQuarter ASEAN magazine, Mr. Nikesh Sinha, Director & CEO, 8.28 Energy talks about his company’s offerings in the region. He also spoke about the challenges faced, learnings from the year 2020 and the company’s latest technological advancements.
Please tell our readers in brief about the solutions offered by 8.28 Energy in the Asean Market.
8.28 Energy is engaged in developing, financing and constructing solar plants across the
Asean region. We are looking at storage solutions that sit well with solar plants to mitigate issues related to either a second peak during the evening or smoothening the load curve.
As a developer, what are the key challenges you face in the Philippines Solar market?
The Philippines solar market is still going through evolution in terms of government regulations relating to the auction process. This needs to settle down and become acceptable to all before the market at large. The exact mechanism is still not clear. The
other issue is of course foreign ownership % although we have seen that in geothermal projects the government has allowed a 100% foreign ownership for investment size of over 50 million dollars. Maybe this is a precursor to better management of the ownership structure in solar energy too.
Please highlight the recent technological advancements that your company has made in the field of construction, O&M and Asset Management.
There are multiple areas of improvement. Storage solutions as I said earlier is a major focus. Similarly, we are looking very strongly at O & M being a key proposition for improvement of IRR. We are examining different kinds of modules and figuring out the right combination of trackers for different countries. This is a work in progress and I am afraid it will remain like this because technology is changing rapidly and we cannot be
wedded to one kind or one type.
Read the full interview here: https://solarquarter.com/2021/04/27/solarquarter-asean-magazine-jan-2021-issue/
