When companies in India are looking to cut back on costs by installing PV solar panels the name that springs to most minds is Amplus Solar. Even the country’s government can’t praise this rapidly expanding business highly enough.
It has been quite a year for the winners of our ‘Award for Best Renewable Energy Company of the Year Asia – 2016′ (India). Not only has the company just signed a deal with Walmart to supply solar power to 15 stores across six states in India, but it has successfully commissioned a 4MW solar project for ‘captive use’ solar for Yamaha Motors in Greater Noida, India. This latter deal being the country’s largest single-location roof top solar installation of its type.
It shouldn’t really come as any surprise to learn that the company – which has enjoyed huge growth since receiving equity investment by US-based global private equity fund, I Squared Capital, in August last year – was the recipient of the Government of India’s National Award for Rooftop Project Development, following recommendations from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
If you gained the impression this was a company going places, you’d be right. At the latest count the business employs approximately 100 professionals across its offices in five Indian cities. Customer-wise, Amplus owns and manages a portfolio of more than 35,000 kWp of solar plants (both operational and under-construction) serving more than 30 clients in more than 200 locations.
Solar as a rapidly growing global market
Their rise is testament to the professional team behind the company, but it is also in line with global trends. In 2015 the global PV market grew by 50 GW and total capacity has reached 227 GW, according to figures from the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power System Programme (IEAPVPS).This is an impressive increase of 25 per cent on the previous year.
Giants in the solar energy sector are China and Japan (with 59 per cent of global capacity last year). North America too is seen as a major trend leader and expected to contribute even more. In India, solar is beginning to hit its stride with capacity expected to reach 5.4 GW by the end of 2016 – securing its position as the fourth largest solar market in the world. Meanwhile, the rooftop segment in India is forecast to expand rapidly in order to achieve the Indian government’s target of 40,000 megawatts by 2022.
Solar is expected to make further inroads into the utilities market with electric vehicles and non-utility solar (such as rooftop solar) contributing more to the overall energy mix. The IEA PVPS attributes this to the fact that the flexibility and adaptability of solar PV makes it suitable for most environments. Added to this is the fact that the majority of market segments, from small rural businesses to huge utility-sized power plants can benefit from it.
The reasons behind the Amplus success story
Executives at Amplus point to a number of reasons for their success. One is their ‘Solar Power as a Service’ (SPAAS) business model which protects clients from technical-related financial and commercial risks while, at the same time, delivers long-term savings and enables them to reach ‘green’ governmental targets.
A further reason for their success is the fact that the company is headed-up by experts with decades of experience in the power sector both in India and globally. Unlike other solar companies in India, they boast of end to end in-house capabilities from design and engineering to procurement, construction, monitoring and maintenance of projects.
The company focuses on the distributed (solar) generation sector, which gives them a unique insight and enables them to directly address any challenges. Other attributes to Amplus’ success include its strong financial backing – enabling it to avoid the trawl for third party investors – coupled with its quick turnaround times in terms of capacity analysis, commercial proposal and site specific customisation.
Sanjeev Aggarwal, Managing Director & CEO, for Amplus Solar (which also operates under the brand name M+ Solar) said “The company enjoys a unique position in the fast growing commercial and industrial distributed generation segment. We are fully prepared to meet the ever-evolving energy needs of our customers with our deep insight into technology, regulatory and market developments, coupled with the strong financials of our company.”
Guru Inder Mohan Singh, Director & COO added: “We now enjoy nationwide capability to deliver operational projects and, at the same time, provide fast and on-going maintenance to customers.
“As a company we pride ourselves on the quality of our plants and the service we are capable of providing via our remote monitoring centre in Gurgaon, together with our in-house SCADA system. The latter maximises uptime for distributed generation and rooftop systems in Indian operating conditions.”
Focusing on the future of solar
As far as the future is concerned, solar energy will prove pivotal as a key growth area for many economies. On the one hand, large utility scale projects will continue to play a major role in driving the adoption of solar technology while, at the same time, falling module and storage prices will help rooftop solar and other distributed solar models increase their solar share of the utility sector’s energy mix.
The use of solar across industrial, commercial and residential channels is expected to rise rapidly. In terms of transport, the emergence of electric vehicles, where solar replaces traditional hydrocarbons, is expected to fuel its adoption into our daily lives even further.
This is boosted by the fact that consumers are becoming more demanding about where their energy comes from – to the extent that an already growing awareness of the need to be energy efficient results in public relations campaigns for the adoption of solar being unnecessary. Today’s generation of business owners, industrialists, politicians and householders are already well up to speed when it comes to the green agenda and sustainability matters. We’ve known for some time that being kinder to Planet Earth is a necessity rather than simply an indulgence.
Amplus is well equipped to lead the future.
Major Amplus Solar Projects
- India’s largest captive solar project at a single location for the Yamaha Motorcycles manufacturing plant in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh – a 4.13MW facility, built within an impressive four month timeframe
- A 4MW solar project installed with “single axis tracker” for the first time ever at an Indian airport for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, at Bangalore airport
- Around 5MW of solar in 15 wholesale outlets forWalmart India in five states – Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh
- The acquisition of SunEdison’s 7MW portfolio of rooftop solar projects. This includes a number of commercial and industrial rooftop projects located throughout India.
- A contract to produce on-site renewable power across six buildings in Gurgaon for the real estate developer Vatikan, with a total capacity of 750 kW.
