Captive Solar Power Plant for My Company – Is It a Good Idea?

What are captive solar power plants?

A captive solar power plant refers to a solar power plant that has been implemented by a company for its own captive consumption. That is, the power generated by the solar power plant is consumed entirely by the developing company itself.

Now, you might easily recognise one type of captive solar power plant, and that is the rooftop solar power plant. Most times, the power generated from a rooftop solar power plant is consumed by the owner of the rooftop, whether it is a residence or an industrial or commercial consumer.

So, are all captive solar power plants just rooftop solar power plants?

Now, there is also a misconception that all captive solar power plants are of the rooftop variety.

This is not correct.

You can actually install a solar power plant outside your premises, and sometimes even a few hundred Kms away from your premises, and still consume all the power generated from your power plant for captive use.

You might wonder: Why will someone want to do this? If they can have the solar power plant on their own rooftop, why will they want to put it up elsewhere.

The answer, as some of you might have already figured out, has to do with the extent of rooftop area available.

In many cases, especially for commercial and industrial consumers, the amount of power they consume (currently, from the grid) is much higher than what a solar power plant on their rooftops can generate.

If such companies wish to have most or all of their power consumed to come from solar, they either need to procure the extra solar power from some one who is generating it outside their company, or instal a power plant themselves outside their company premises, in a location where they can find enough land to set up a solar power plant of the capacity that their power consumption requires.

Business Case for Captive Solar Power Plants

While in the last five years, most of the development for solar power plants has come about from power plants put up for sale of electricity to the government utility, slowly but steadily, a number of solar power plants are coming up to cater to captive power consumption.

What is the business case that is driving this movement towards captive solar power?

  • The cost of solar power is decreasing all the time. As of Oct 2015, cost of generation of solar power is only slightly above Rs 6/kWh. In fact, if you are putting up a MW scale, ground mounted solar power plant, your LCOE can be as low as Rs 5.5/kWh without accelerated depreciation benefit and as low as Rs 5 or even less if you can avail of AD benefits.
  • Whereas cost of grid power for corporates in many parts of India is more than Rs 8 per unit, and expected to increase even further
  • This makes it attractive for companies that are large consumers of electricity to explore captive solar power plant options
  • If your company consumes about 1 lac units or more of electricity every month, and paying Rs.7/kWh or more, a captive solar power plant could be a good option for you to save costs and secure your electricity price for 25 years.

Steps Involved in Captive Solar Power Plant Implementation

  • Analyse your current power consumption and compare it to the cost of solar power
  • Estimate future cost trends for your grid power and compare it to the lifetime cost of solar power. This step will establish the financial feasibility of a captive solar power plant for your business. If feasibility exists, analyse your state solar policy and regulations to identify incentives and constraints for captive solar power generation.
  • If the above are favourable, estimate the total solar power plant capacity required for your captive solar power plant Identify land for putting up solar power plant
  • Identify the EPC for putting the solar power plant Design and implement the solar power plant in the most optimal manner

Related Aspects You Need to Work on

  • Estimate the optimal capacity you need for your captive solar power plant – this will be based on your existing power consumption and the costs associated with it.
  • Get your finance team to develop a robust financial model that will provide a precise idea of the business case you have for captive solar power plants.
  • Update yourself on the solar policies of your state, and analyse how these policies affect captive solar power generation. Use these to determine the extent of incentives and costs attached to captive solar power plants. This stage will determine the actual landed cost of solar power for your company.
  • If you need to install solar power plant outside your premises, identify land in a location suitable for the same.
  • One of the critical acts is to identify the correct EPC for installing the solar power plant. Selecting the right EPC can make a tremendous difference to the success of your business.
  • Coordinate with the EPC for key component selection in order to arrive at the best design and components that maximize power generation over the next 25 years

Captive solar power plants are not very prevalent in India as of 2015. But with the cost of solar power declining fast, cost of solar power from captive solar power plants is already cheaper than the price many industrial and commercial sector companies are paying to the grid. As a result, a number of them are considering implementing captive solar power plants, and this trend should accelerate even further starting 2016.

46 thoughts on “Captive Solar Power Plant for My Company – Is It a Good Idea?

  1. Meganathan

    What is the ideal profile of a company for it to be considering a captive solar power plant? In terms of size, region/location, number of units of electricity used…

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Meganathan –

      A very good question indeed.

      Captive solar power plants are not for everyone, at least not yet.

      Based on work done by Solar Mango, I would say the following would be the key profile of companies that can consider captive solar:

      Top 3

      1. Consumption of at least 1 lac units/month
      2. Reasonably high electricity tariff – Rs 8/unit and above
      3. Your region does not have too many power cuts

      Others:

      1. If your organization is profit making and needs to pay significant taxes every year
      2. You have enough rooftop area
      3. A significant % of your electricity consumption is during daytime

      I would say the first three are the most critical, the rest 3 are bonus.

      Typically, we have seen that a company with a 1 lac unit/month consumption and a grid tariff of Rs 8/kWh can save about Rs 1 lac/month on average during the project lifetime (25 years) – this takes into account expected grid tariff escalations.

      You might wonder why I mention power cuts. If you are running a rooftop solar based captive consumption, too many power cuts will mean that you would be running your diesel genset for a significant amount of time. Based on research from Solar Mango, we have found that in most situations, solar can reduce diesel consumption only by about 25% – which means you will continue using most of the diesel!

      If you are wheeling power from an external solar power plant, unless you have a dedicated connection (in which case you of course will have very few power outages!), during power cuts, you will not anyway get solar power either.

      Hope the answer was of some help, do let me know if you have other queries or need clarifications, will be glad to provide

      1. SP

        Hello Sir,

        its SP again. Your each thread blog is wonderful . It is giving lot of information to all people who would like to jump in Solar. Thanks for founding a great company.

        For captive plant PPA, what are the minimum commitment needed from energy consumer company or call as client.

        For this business case. How electricity is provided to consumer/factory beyond 6 hours. let say client has 2shift work and need electricity from 6-6 PM . is rest of the time is client suppose to get from DISCOM or as you said Diesel Genset will provide electricity ?
        How this system works and fit into business case?

        SPD also need to figure is client uses on weekend otherwise for offgrid project wasting energy over weekend ?

        Any suggestion how many point still left out . might get good tariff but some of these points can lower income

        SP

    2. SP

      hello Solar mango,

      when we reply to any message we have to to scroll all the way down and since the thread is too long in cellphone it is very difficult . Could you get this bug fixed in your website . it would be very easy for web developer . just a java script function call

  2. Madhu Mishra

    At the outset, thanks to Mr Santhanam for taking time off to write so many wonderful blog posts, each of which is serving the country in a great way

    On captive solar power plants, I have been thinking of the same for my company for some time, but one of my colleagues has been advocating wind farms in the place of solar farms…

    As things stand now, I think wind power costs significantly less than solar power, so the question arises Why we should consider solar instead of wind?

    I will be glad if Mr Santhanam could share his insights on this query…

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Madhu

      Thanks for asking a very relevant question, and a very interesting one too!

      Firstly, even though I am part of Solar Mango, I am not an advocate of solar against wind, if at all I am an advocate of anything, it is renewable energy against fossil and even in that, many times I am guarded because renewables still have their Achilles Heel in terms of their infirmness.

      This disclaimer having been made, let me proceed.

      Until a year back, I would have fully agreed with you that wind is cheaper than solar, but it is no longer that clear.

      I will tell you why.

      On capital costs, 1 MW of wind farm installations costs about Rs 6 crores. As we know, it is the same for solar.

      One O&M, costs for solar will be a fraction of that for wind

      Wind used to score over solar mainly on generation. In good wind areas, wind farms can generate upto 26 lac units/MW/year (30% CUF). Alas, most of those high wind zones have already been taken up, so it is more realistic to take a 25% CUF for wind, which gives you 22 lac units/MW/year.

      Solar pv power plants typically have 18-19% CUF – 16-17 lac units/MW/year. Now, this is without trackers. With trackers, we have seen that the CUF has already seen an increase to 22% (19.5 lac units/MW/year). There are some solar power plants that have claimed 24% CUF (21 lac units/MW/year), so that would be almost the same as wind. As tracker technology is improving really fast (while wind turbine technology has matured and cannot be expected to provide significantly higher returns for the same inputs), one can expect solar with trackers and wind to be generating almost the same number of units soon, on average.

      Now, if you consider all the above, it becomes clear that solar and wind power are costing around the same, for an average wind and solar farm. I say average, because while the average CUF you can expect for wind is only 25% (actually I am being generous here), large parts of the country are bathed in sunshine and can give you excellent CUFs. That is, there is a limitation on how much area is available in the country that can give you 25% or above CUFs for wind, but there is a humongous amount of space in India that can give you CUFs of 22% (with trackers) for solar.

      Finally, the lifetime of a wind power plant is 20 years, while that for solar is 25.

      When I plugged in all the above stuff into our LCOE calculator (levelised cost of electricity), and after suitable assumptions on interest rate etc., I get the following:
      LCOE for wind farms: Rs 4.6/kWh
      LCOE for solar power plant with trackers: Rs 4.68/kWh
      LCOE for solar power plant without trackers: Rs 4.96/kWh

      Please note that the LCOE takes into account all costs and the time value of money.

      Essentially, you can see that the cost of solar is almost the same of wind for farms with trackers.

      But remember this: Most regions in India can support a solar farm and provide you the numbers I showed above, while only a small % of these regions are suitable for wind farms.

      Hope this was of help

  3. Apurva Varma

    How many Indian companies have put up captive solar power plants? From what I udnderstand, not too many…

    If the business case is strong, why are so few Indian companies with captive solar power plants???

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Hi Apurva

      Thanks for asking a pertinent question

      I agree, there are not too many large solar captive plants as of now in India, though there are over 100 medium-large rooftop solar, which are also anyway captive solar power plants.

      This is so mainly because the economics were not in favor of solar until now.

      But as I have mentioned in my earlier comment to Meganathan, economics are fast turning in favor of solar and for companies with over 1 lac units/month of electricity consumption and grid tariffs of Rs 8/kWh and above, captive solar has started making economic sense.

      Just to give you an idea, a typical medium-large shopping mall uses over 2 lac units/month, a medium sized college uses about 2 lac units/month, and a medium sized software co (say about 1000 employees) uses over 2 lac units/month.

      Most of these entities have their grid tariffs inch towards Rs 8/kWh, and in some states, much above Rs 8/kWh
      in states such as Maharashtra.

      You can thus see that the fundamentals for captive solar to accelerate are all in place.

      2016 will tell whether I am right in my optimism.

      Thanks once again for asking.

  4. Mridul

    Why co put lots money for captive power plant when they can buy power from other solar power producers without any up front expense??

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Good question Mridul.

      Yes, you can opt for purchasing solar power from an external entity especially if you do not wish to be burdened with operating a solar power plant.

      But you might want to note the following:

      1. The costs of power purchase from an external supplier will be higher than the cost of solar power if you generate it yourself, simply owing to the margins required for the external supplier.
      2. There are companies which can manage the O&M for your solar power plant at reasonable costs (Rs 5-6 lacs/year/MW), so running the solar power plant should hardly be an issue

      With the above being taken into account, I would say the following: Purchasing solar power from an external solar power producer makes sense if either your consumption is less than 1 thousand units/month or if you are looking for a shorter period commitment (say less than 10 years). On the second criterion, mind you, it will be difficult to find external solar power plants willing to sign power purchase agreements for 10 years or less, most of them prefer 15 years or higher.

      Hope my answer was of some use.

  5. Senthil Kumar Kannan

    Captive solar works best and economical if it is from the rooftop. Otherwise you will pay high wheeling and surcharges to the state utility and this makes the financials unviable

    How much does captive solar power plants cost when compared to large solar farms?

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Hi Senthil

      Thanks for pointing out the wheeling and surcharge aspects.

      Yes, if your solar power plant is not on the rooftop but located elsewhere and if you are using the grid to “wheel” the power to your premises, you do end up paying charges to the distribution company that owns and operates the grid. And yes, some states have very high cross subsidy charges as well which could increase the cost burden of wheeling power.

      At the same time, it is nice to see that many states keen on solar are either waiving these charges or are reducing these to as low as is possible.

      I do agree that things are still a bit hazy on this front – for wheeling and other charges – hopefully, we will have better clarity on this for most states by end of 2016. As you will know, states such as Karnataka and Andhra have already started giving significant concessions on the wheeling and cross subsidy charges for solar power.

      Let’s hope for more clarity and positive policies on this front in 2016

  6. Brijesh Mishra

    What are the govt incentives in India for captive solar power plants? I would like to know about central govt and state govt incentives for this

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Hi Brijesh

      Thanks for the question

      If your solar power plant is on the rooftop, the following are the complete list of incentives:
      1. Accelerated depreciation based tax benefits
      2. MNRE’s central capital subsidy in select cases, if yours is a residential rooftop or educational. This subsidy has seen some up and down revisions, as of Jan 2016, it is at 30% of total capital cost, but mind you, this is not applicable for most commercial rooftop solar installations
      3. State government capital subsidy – similar to the MNRE subsidy, this is applicable only for certain types of rooftop installations, and only some state governments provide this subsidy (TN for instance provides this, but only for 1 kW residential systems). Extent of this subsidy varies, but typically it is about 20,000 Rs per kW. Note that this is over and above the central government subsidy
      4. Net metering incentives – some states such as Karnataka have provided special tariffs for surplus power from rooftop that is fed into the grid. For Karnataka, this is a high Rs 9.56/kWh!

      If your solar power plant is a ground mounted system in which all the power is wheeled through the grid, the following are the complete list of incentives:
      1. Accelerated depreciation based tax benefits
      2. Some states provide indirect incentives in the form of waivers for wheeling charges and cross subsidy surcharges which are otherwise applicable for open access power consumers.

      Hope I was able to answer your question.

  7. David Ayyasamy

    In most Indian states, captive solar is cheaper than grid power cost. However if the captive power comes from outside the premises using the grid, then the costs for wheeling and cross subsidy charges might make solar power landed price very high

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear David

      Many thanks for your kind comment

      And you have raised an important aspect in your comment – the charges levied on the electricity that is transmitted using the state discom’s grid infrastructure.

      I would like to take this opportunity to dwell a bit on all types of fees, levies and charges that grid connected MW scale solar power plants have, if they are gonna use the discom’s grid to supply the solar power thus generated either to themselves or to a third party

      The levies can be broadly divided into the following categories, for the segment called the Open Access power purchasers, that is those who purchase power from private companies:

      Wheeling & Transmission charges – these are charged to you because you are using the electricity grid owned by the state discom
      Banking charges – these are charged if you plan to save some of the electricity produced this season to be used in the next season (this happens if your customers consume less than what you generate in a season)
      Cross subsidy surcharges – these are essentially, or at least, ostentatiously, robbing the rich to pay the poor. These charges are levied to cover for the subsidies given to the poor folks for their power bills
      Wheeling losses – these are taken to account for distribution losses
      Electricity duty – well, it is just a stupid tax, what else.

      The above are the main levies.

      Of the above, what any open access consumer should most worry about are the wheeling and banking charges, and the cross subsidy surcharge, especially the latter. Together, these two could add upto Rs 2 or in some states, even higher to the solar power generated.

      That is, if the cost of generation of solar power for you is Rs 5.5, and if you are supplying this to an open access customer, you will need to add Rs 2 in the above instance to compute the landed cost of power for your consumer, so that becomesd Rs 7.5/kWh – you go to add a further margin for yourself, so the total price at which you sell the power could be close to Rs 8/kWh, making it quite unattractive. Mind you, if the wheeling and cross subsidy charges were halved in this case, the price you charge your customer with all other things remaining the same would have been Rs 7/kWh – much more affordable than Rs 8/kWh.

      Note that the above charges could vary from one state to another. Here’s a slightly dated but detailed investigation of these charges for the state of Karnataka – https://firstgreenconsulting.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/understanding-various-charges-payable-for-open-access/

      Note also that these charges are for open access consumers, and the charges could be much lower for captive consumers – those who generate the solar power and feed into the grid only to be used by themselves at the other end. Many states have no cross subsidy charges for captive power consumers. In addition, the wheeling and banking charges could also be incentivised.
      under

      Some states have in fact been very generous for solar, in that they have waived most of the charges or reduced these significantly, be it for open access consumer or for captive consumption,

      All the above of course make estimating these charges a fairly intricate matter, but it is critical that a solar power developer understands all these and factors these into his costs – be it for captive consumption of otherwise.

  8. Mysore Balakrishnan

    Captive solar power plants for India have a very good future in India. Many companies have land they have purchased somewhere and this land can be used to supply power to themselves for 25 years

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Balakrishnan

      Many thanks for your comment

      Yes, I agree with you on this

      With the cost of grid power rising all the time and as you have mentioned, companies having extra land in low cost real estate regions, these companies now have an excellent opportunity to put this land to use and secure their electricity costs for the subsequent 25 years!

      I am indeed looking forward to a significant growth in the captive solar power plant sector starting 2016

  9. AK SWARNKAR

    Mr Santhanam, In Defence we need power round the clock. Most of the stations are having sufficient land. Both Solar power and Wind power generation possible . Is it Advisable to go for Captive Solar power/wind power plant using its own investment or it is better to go for PPP with assured power supply for 25yrs. Can you put your views in this aspect.

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Swarnkar

      Many thanks for your question.

      You might want to see my earlier reply to ,Mridul, whose question was on the same topic.

      But I can perhaps provide some more details here.

      There are two aspects that could make a captive solar power plant more attractive than going for an outside contract

      1. Many states give concessions and incentives for captive renewable energy power plants that are not applicable if you purchase it from a third party generator. These incentives typically come in the form of lower (or waiver of) transmission & wheeling charges and cross subsidy surcharges. These charges could add up to Rs 2 / kWh!
      2. From the quotes I have seen so far from solar farm developers. they work on about 7-10% margins. These quotes also typically include escalation clauses in tune with escalations to grid power prices

      The above two are what you essentially save to a significant extent if you have your own captive solar power plant.

      Now, what could be the cons?

      1. The upfront capital cost, which is about Rs 6 crores/MW
      2. The O&M charges are yours, and so could be the responsibility of maintaining the solar power plant

      If you look at the pros and cons, you can see that you are pretty much compensating for the cost of capital (which is mostly debt) by avoiding paying 8-10% margins that an external generator asks for. The O&M charges come to about Rs 5 lacs /MW, which is about 25 paise/kWh, and these are more than compensated for by your avoiding much higher cross subsidy surcharges.

      While this might not be relevant for Defence (as I doubt you folks pay corporate taxes!), for commercial enterprises having your own solar power plant can give you accelerated depreciation benefits – but you can ignore this point for your venture.

      Thus, economically, even not taking accelerated depreciation into account, having your solar power power plant is at least on par with procuring power from a third party, but in many cases, economically somewhat advantageous. In regions with high cross subsidy charges for open access but zero for captive, there could be a significant advantage in having a captive solar power plant.

      That said, the other point has to do with scale.

      As the scales increase, esp beyond 10 MW, the advantages of having a captive solar power plant increases even further as against purchasing from a third party independent power producer. Because at increased scales, both your capex and O&M expenses come down to a certain extent.

      Specifically, as you are in defense, it is quite possible that you might also have significant inhouse engineering talent, so maintaining a simple solar power plant might not be much of an issue!

      I know I have mentioned too many points. In summary, I guess I can say that if your scale is going to be beyond 5 MW, having your captive power plant will make a lot more sense than procuring it from outside. For much smaller capacities, the answer might not be so clear and might require further analyses.

      Of course. I am not aware of specific incentives frameworks under which defense establishments operate, so these might need to be factored in before we can arrive at a clear answer.

      I hope I have been able to provide you some clarity.

      Thank you once again for your question

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    1. Suresh Reddy

      Difficult to answer sir without details

      Kindly provide details of your total power consumption per month, and also your rooftop area

      Thanks

      Suresh, Hyderabad

      1. SP

        If you can tell more about your company and contact details. We might guide you accordingly.
        What would be best.

        Regards, SP

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Badri

      Many thanks for this interesting question.

      Which of the two – solar or wind – you go with for your captive power generation is indeed an intricate question.

      In general, wind power costs less than solar power for MW scale power plants. Levelized cost of wind power is about Rs 4/kWh for a well performing wind power plant with a 30% CUF (one of the highest CUFs a wind farm get in India), while solar power will cost about Rs 5.25/kWh for a well designed solar power plant (1-5 MW capacity) with a CUF of about 20%.

      So, one would indeed be right in wondering why one should not put up wind farms instead of solar #ower #lants, as the cost would be lower for the former.

      There are however two challenges with wind farms:

      1. The 30% CUF is not available from every wind farm; it is in fact quite possible that your CUF might be much less than than, even lower than 25%, making the cost of power higher than Rs 4/kWh
      2. Unlike solar power plants which can be installed in most regions in India as the country is blessed with sunshine, only select regions in India are suitable for wind power plants. If your company is located in a state that is not conducive for wind power, tough luck! (interstate transmission of solar or wind for captive faces multiple challenges right now)

      If your company is indeed able to get access to good wind power sites in your own state, you should in fact seriously consider having wind captive power plants; else, solar power will be the more feasible option.

      Hope I was able to provide a clear answer to your query

      All the best!

  11. Subhasree Anand

    Sir – What will be the grid power cost in 5 years from now (2020), and what will be the cost of solar power by then? So also I want to ask should I wait until 2020 if the gap will be very high and so my business case for solar will also be much stronger??

    1. Suresh Reddy

      If you are referring to offsite, grid connected solar power plants, approximately Rs 5.5 crores / MW without trackers, and Rs 5.9 crores/MW with trackers.

      The above costs include all except approval costs and costs you may have to pay local farmers for right of way etc (not always applicable).

      The above estimates are assuming you are putting up a captive power plant in the range 1-5 MW. If your power plant capacity is over 20 MW, the above costs could be 5-7% lower

      Thanks

      Suresh, Hyderabad

  12. Ujjwal Doshi

    Sir, I have a different query for you

    Can I purchase power from power exchanges at very low prices? IEX states average power purchase prices are very low every day? Isnt this a better idea than captive solar power plants??

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Aslam

      Well designed and constructed solar PV power have a lifetime of 25 years or even more.

  13. TK Iengar

    Sir putting up a captive solar power also means our company has to manage and maintain the power plant, which is not our core business Mr Narasimhan. Is it advisable then?

    TK Iengar, London, UK

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Mr Iengar

      Many thanks for your question and I appreciate your concern

      Thankfully for you, there are companies that can take care of the complete O&M for your solar power plant while you concentrate on your core business.

      You may want to check the response I have provided to Geeta further down

      Many thanks once more for your interest and comment, all the best!

  14. Rajesh Udeshi

    Dear Mr Narsi – how many Indian corporates have put up captive solar power plants, mainly offsite?

    Rajesh, Surat

    1. Krishnan Mahesh

      Dear Rajesh

      This is Krishnan

      I thought I would answer your question

      Right now there are not many many companies perhaps a hundred around the country which have put up offsite captive solar power plants, examples are cos like Infosys. But I believe this will increase significant starting now, owing to discoms raising the tariffs as part of their restructuring process..UDAY scheme from GoI will also accelerate this process…

      One can expect the number to be in 1000s of companies in a couple of years from now, that will be a growth of almost 1000% if this happens

  15. Manav

    All large companies are going for solar power purchase from independent power producers rather than putting up their own solar power plants, as the former is an easier and more elegant version. Having your own captive power plant can be messy…

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Manav.

      Thanks for the comment.

      “Having your own solar power plant can be messy” – Yes and No. Which of the two is the answer for you depends on the scale of the solar power plant, the operational model you choose for operating the solar power plant (there are dedicated O&M companies that can take the heat of maintenance off you) and how much you can actually save by owning your own power plant instead of purchasing power from someone else – in which case you are just replacing the current utility supplier with another one

      True, captive does not make sense for all companies, but at the same time, it could make tons of sense for some.

      Thanks once again for your inputs, have a great day

  16. Geeta

    Dear Narasimhan

    Thank you indeed for such an excellent and timely post and your patient and detailed answers to queries

    I am keen to know if there are companies which will take of the entire O&M for captive solar power plants that my company puts up? I ask this because we do not wish to get into power plant operations ourselves, something a few other commentators have already mentioned earlier

    If there are companies to whom we can contract the O&M ops, then the business case for captive solar power plant is more attractive for companies such as ours which are in completely different sectors, unrelated to power (I am from the fashion garment manufacturing sector)

    Kindly advice and thank you once again for sharing your knowledge in such a gracious manner through Solar Mango

    All the best!

    Geeta Sahasrabuddhe

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Dear Geeta

      Many thanks for your interesting question

      The short answer is: Yes, there are companies dedicated for O&M and they can take up the complete O&M for you so that you can focus on your business while owning your solar farm and generating your own power

      Thanks once again for your question

  17. Suresh Reddy

    Great post

    I wish to personally thank Solar Mango and Narasimhan-garu for taking time to enlighten us about so many critical aspects of solar power plants.

    Thank you indeed sir, and hats off to your efforts

    With regards

    Suresh Reddy
    Hyderabad

    1. Narasimhan Santhanam Post author

      Thank you Suresh for your kind and generous appreciation.

      I am really glad that the assistance from Solar Mango is useful to others

      Do let us know if you have any queries and my team will do its best to give you assistance and information on the same

      Thanks again, and take care

  18. Sandeep

    Dear Narasimhan,

    Thanks for the detailed blog and answering various queries on the captive solar PV power plants. Can you please let me know if there are any constraints in Karnataka state government policy for setting up rooftop captive solar PV power plant.

    Thanks and Best Regards,
    Sandeep

  19. Zainul

    Well hey everyone! i have enough land to install 1mw solar plant n within 40kms radius there are many companies which i am looking forward to approach for 51:49 ratio of partnership to install power plant, can anyone tell me what are the risk factors in this method i live in Gujarat and Gujarat electrical board refused to buy power from me so ill have to go with captive method, suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you,

  20. Manoj

    Assume my factory consume 2 Lacs units per month…..then how much solar power I need to generate to take care my monthly electricity needs? and how much total investment this solar power system require?

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