India: SoPro to Create Database of 20 Solar Process Heat Case Studies

Tue, 18 February 2014

The German Agency for International Cooperation, GIZ, will be working together with the German Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Fraunhofer ISE, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) on analysing and optimising existing solar process heat installations in India as part of the Solar Process Heat (SoPro) – India project. The project was officially launched during a kick-off meeting and expert panel discussion, which took place in New Delhi on 29 January 2014 and was jointly organised by the MNRE and the GIZ, and it will last for 2 years. The photo shows, from left to right, Tarun Kapoor, Joint Secretary of the MNRE, Rakesh Kumar, Director Power Systems at the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), Veena Sinha, Director Solar Thermal at the MNRE and Gerhard Stryi-Hipp, Head of Energy Policy at Fraunhofer ISE.

According to GIZ India’s industry has shown great interest in solar technology in order to avoid increasing fuel costs. But the nation faces several challenges to larger deployment: lack of awareness, concerns about the technology’s reliability and a lack of corroborative data on performance and cost savings. To encourage further investments in the sector, it is essential to identify important successful installations and present them as case studies to the broader public.

Kapoor was pleased with the SoPro initiative and pointed out that “the government has recently approved an MNRE subsidy disbursement of INR 1.08 billion (around EUR 13 million) to promote solar thermal systems with a cumulative collector area of 400,000 m² for industrial and institutional applications in different states of the country.” (See further details in the database of incentive programmes)

The SoPro initiative includes the following goals:

Monitor three solar process heat systems: The objective is to prove through scientific monitoring that solar thermal systems in the industrial sector can deliver a significant amount of solar heat and save a significant amount of fuel if they are designed and operated well enough. The results are thought to help increase trust in solar heating technology.

Develop simple, robust and low-cost monitoring systems adapted to the demands of the Indian solar heating market and based on the experiences with the three monitored systems.

Create a database of 20 case studies of solar process heat installations and publish it on the web. The web pages should have additional information displayed as checklists, which would help system owners to better operate and maintain their solar systems and support the decision-making of prospective clients by determining the economic viability of a solar process heat investment.

Andhra Pradesh Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organisation (APITCO) has been put in charge of setting up the database of case studies. The organisation has identified 22 industries with solar thermal systems, which will be ultimately reduced to 20. Three of these chosen systems will be monitored.

Place of Installation	State	Sector	Vacuum tube collectors (VTC)/ Flat plate collectors (FPC)	Collector area [m²]
Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd	Tamil Nadu	Automobile	VTC	455
Wheels India Ltd,	Tamil Nadu	Automobile	VTC	1378
Anchal Dairy	Uttarakhand	Dairy	VTC	144
L M Glasfiber (India) Pvt. Ltd	Karnataka	Wind Turbine Parts	FPC	160
Asian Paints	Haryana	Paints	FPC	525
HP State Cooperative Milk Production Federation	Himachal Pradesh	Dairy	FPC	120
Excel Crop Care Limited	Gujarat	Pesticides	FPC	138
Amul Dairy Cattle Feed Factory	Gujarat	Dairy	FPC	709
Plethico Pharma	Madhya Pradesh	Herbal Drugs	FPC	176
Dudhsagar Dairy	Gujarat	Dairy	FPC	275
Uttam Dairy	Gujarat	Dairy	FPC	289
Milma Dairy	Kerala	Dairy	FPC	160
Aavin Dairy	Tamil Nadu	Dairy	FPC	300
Synthokem Labs	Hyderabad	Pharma	VTC	384
Divis Labs	Andhra Pradesh	Pharma	FPC	160
OCV Reinforced Systems	Andhra Pradesh	Glass Fiber	VTC	72
Parle Products Limited	Rajasthan	Biscuit	FPC	140
Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Limited	Rajasthan	Dairy	FPC	413
Ramky Effluent Evaporation	Andhra Pradesh	Effluent Evaporation	VTC	132
Bharat Containers Pvt Ltd	Maharastra	Aluminium Extrusion	FPC	144
Bharat Containers Pvt Ltd	Maharastra	Aluminium Extrusion	FPC	145
Godrej & Boyce	Punjab	Refrigerators	FPC	72