Indian electrical transformer producer Shirdi Sai Electricals Limited (SSEL) has entered a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with German engineering and consulting company Viridis.iQ GmbH to help it establish a 4 GW integrated solar PV manufacturing fab in India.
Viridis enables companies set up solar PV production, offering technical, process, equipment, financial and business services for the entire value chain. SSEL will take the company's help to establish the 4 GW capacity after it emerged as one of the winners of India's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme (see Solar PLI Budget Set To Increase).
The MoU to plan 'one of India's largest production facilities covering the entire PV value chain' from polysilicon-ingot/wafer-cell-module was signed at the Indian Embassy in Berlin by SSEL's N. Visweswara Reddy and Viridis.iQ's Wolfgang Herbst. The production facility is planned to come up in 5 years for an estimated investment of INR 280 billion ($3.73 billion).
Referring to a company statement, local press agency United News of India (UNI) said the facility may be located in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka or Chhattisgarh.
According to the MoU signed, both the companies will work on the project phase wise, starting with finalizing conceptual design, and working out a business plan. Viridis.iQ will provide its technical support to construct and operate the project, as well as support the facility for up to 1 year to stabilize the operations.
While this project catapults SSEL into the solar PV manufacturing domain, for Viridis.iQ this partnership enables it to enter one of the world's largest and growing PV markets where it could explore many more similar opportunities as the government strengthens policies to encourage domestic PV manufacturing.
In October 2021, India's Reliance Industries Limited invested in Germany's NexWafe to bring the company's monocrystalline silicon wafer production process to India (see Strategic Investment For German Wafer Producer).
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