Solar Mango DPR for Solar Power Plants

Are you looking to invest in a solar power plant in India?

Use Solar Mango’s Detailed Project Report for Ground Mounted Solar Power Plants to understand everything about this fast-growing opportunity.

With solar power growing at a fast pace in India and with the central state governments providing significant thrust and incentives for its growth, thousands of entrepreneurs, investors and businesses are keen to invest in solar power plants. This is a detailed project report for them.

This comprehensive expert report and guide will be invaluable for those investing in the ground-mounted solar power plants business in India.

Solar Mango’s Ground Mounted Solar Power Plant DPR, in addition to providing detailed inputs on the business models, financials, technology, and details on land and infrastructure required for implementing a ground mounted solar power plant, also includes important sections on risks and risk mitigation where it clearly spells out the areas of uncertainties, and how adverse effects of each uncertainty can be mitigated.

This Detailed Project Report for Ground Mounted Solar Power Plants is written by industry experts from Solar Mango with experience in technical, operational and financial aspects of the Indian solar energy sector.
Our team has assisted over 50 companies in their solar power plant investments, and over 1000 Indian companies and entrepreneurs in understanding the solar power plant business.

This detailed project report can be used by your corporate project teams for internal presentations. In addition, it can also be used as a key reference resource for making the DPRs for banks or other financial institutions.

As you will be investing significant amounts in a solar power plant (1 MW of solar power plant costs upwards of Rs 5 crores as of Apr 2016), it is imperative that you are able to review a document that provide authentic and comprehensive details on all the critical aspects of a ground mounted solar power plant. As a result, both internal corporate boards and external financial institutions recommend that you get the DPR done from an expert organization and not a company that just writes a Protocol DPR report. Just to let you know, we have seen DPRs that are nothing but copy-paste of some Internet pages. It is critical you avoid such DPRs.

Solar Mango is the leader in the solar energy research, consulting and education domains for the Indian market.

This DPR, in addition to providing detailed inputs on the business model, technology used, land and location details and financials, also includes sections on risks and risk mitigation that clearly spell out areas of uncertainties, and also how the adverse effects of each uncertainty can be mitigated. Give special care to this section of Risks and Risk Mitigation, because this is how you clearly prove to your board or to your external financial investor that your professional team knows what exactly it is doing. Banks and financial institutions do take some risks, as long as they understand the nature of risks involved, and where possible, having a metric to quantify those risks.

Ground Mounted Solar Power Plant DPR – List of Contents

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Background of the Project

Demand Analysis and Justification for the Project

  • Solar Potential in India
    • Solar Potential in Various Regions – detailed data and inputs on the solar radiation potential in the various regions of India
  • Overview of Central and State Government Solar Policies – subsidies, feed in tariffs, tax holidays and other tax incentives such as accelerated depreciation, RECs…
  • Business Case for Ground Mounted Solar power plants – The key business objectives that solar power plants satisfy, and hence the business case for each, are detailed here.
  • Benefits from the Project

Business & Revenue Models for Solar Power Plants in India

Three main revenue models for Indian ground mounted solar power plants

  • Sale to utility
  • Captive consumption
    • A variation of this is group captive
  • Sale to third party

Each of the above three business models is explained in detail, and sample calculations are provided to show how each of these models works

Land and Infrastructure Requirements for Setting up the Solar Power Plant

  • Land Details – Area required, and other pre-requisites for the land
  • Details will also be provided for what portion of land is required for what purpose.
  • Instructions on how to evaluate your land
    • Region in Which the Land is Located
    • Characteristics of the Location in the Context of a Solar Power Plant– Includes details on
      • Evacuation infrastructure required
      • Access to location through roads
      • Availability of water
      • Data on relevant environmental aspects such air pollution.

Estimating Generation from Your power plant

  • Detailed instructions on estimating the generation from your solar power plant. Variables used for this estimation include
    • Type of panels used
    • Types of inverters used
    • Plant layout
    • Region in which the power plant is located
    • Grid uptime
    • Panel degradation
  • Suggestions and recommendations to significantly increase the output from your solar power plant. These are based on real life inputs collected by the Solar Mango team from across India.

Technical features and equipment for the solar power plant

  • Overview of Solar Power Plant Technologies
  • Panels
    • Details of types of panels and their specifications
    • Details of lifetimes and warranties
    • Crystalline silicon or thin film silicon panels
    • Checklist for solar panel selection
      • Checklist based on efficiency, grade, Tier, temperature coefficient, anti- PID and more
    • Mounting Structures
      • Details of mounting structures, materials made of
      • Details of lifetimes and warranties
      • Checklist for mounting structure selection
    • Inverters
      • Central or string inverters
      • Details of types of panels you plan to use, their specifications
      • Details of lifetimes and warranties
      • Checklist for inverter selection
    • Trackers
      • Details of single and dual axis trackers
      • Details on components of a tracker and how to choose the right tracker
      • Checklist for tracker selection
    • Other Balance of Systems Monitoring Systems
    • AC Side Electricals Such as Transformers, Switchgear, Cables…
    • Details of Substation Required for Evacuation
      • Details of distance from solar power plant to sub-station and how it affects costs
      • Details of the substation requirements – load capacity and related data
    • Details of Load Flow Study Required for Your Solar Power Plant
    • Civil and Architectural Requirements

Financial Analysis

Comprehensive financial analyses are provided for a number of scenarios. This section will critically aid you and your team to fully evaluate the financial feasibility of investing in a solar power plant.

  • Base Data and Assumptions
    • Generation including yearly degradation
    • Debt-Equity ratio
    • Estimated cost of financing
    • Additional fund requirement during the plant’s lifetime, if any
  • Cost Components
    • Capital Cost for the Project – detailed break-up of the capital costs
    • Operating & Maintenance Costs
    • Interest costs
    • Total Cost of Power Generation
    • Illustrations for levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) estimates
  • Revenue Components
    • Year by Year Revenue for 25 years based on tariff assumptions
  • Comprehensive Project Cash Flow Analysis
  • Payback Period and IRR
  • Scenario Analysis – this is a critical aspect, as investors are keen to know about the uncertainties involved in the project and how the project financials would perform under best and worst case scenarios
  • Summary of Financial Analysis and Inferences

Risks and Mitigation

  • Project Completion Risks – Most aspects of a solar PV power plant project are well defined and hence there should not be too many delays. However, this section provides inputs on delays that could yet happen owing to approvals, possible issues with grid extension to substation, etc.
  • Policy and Regulatory Risks – This section provides detailed inputs on specific risks that could happen owing to policy, legal and political constraints, some of which are specific to solar PV power plants.
  • Technology Risks – While most components of the solar PV power plants have achieved technological maturity, for an investor it is critical to know the exceptions when there could be technology failures. This section provides inputs on possible instances of panel or inverter failure, and also possible failures that can occur in other portions of the solar power plant. The section also provides exclusive details on systems that can be installed to both prevent such failures and minimize the damages in the instance of failure.
  • Operational and Performance Risks – The key uncertainty for a solar power plant performance is the amount of sunlight available; other than this, performance can be significantly affected due to poor monitoring and maintenance. This section provides detailed inputs on the possible results of underperformance owing to poor maintenance.

Summary, Inferences & Recommendations

Annexure

  • Details of latest solar policies in India, both central government policies and policies for various states.
  • Line Diagram and Schematic Diagrams for the Solar Power Plant
  • Project Implementation Schedule
  • List of key component suppliers
  • Price estimates for the various components and trends for these in the last few years

Key Highlights of the DPR

  • Some developers are of the opinion that DPR is just a protocol document for the banks. Solar Mango feels a well thought out DPR can make a difference to you the investor, by enabling you to understand the critical aspects of both the business and technology of a solar power plant.
  • Solar Mango’s DPR for a Ground Mounted Solar power plant is a comprehensive document that can provide you with a complete feasibility analyses for a solar power plant. This document can also be used as the reference/background document when you wish to prepare a project report for your bank/financier.
  • This report is based on the extensive understanding Solar Mango has of the Indian solar power plant sector at conceptual and practical levels.
  • By providing practical insights on the challenges and the mitigation measures, the DPR enables you with an excellent understanding of how best to put up solar power plants to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.
  • Last but not the least, this has been developed by Solar Mango, the #1 Solar Guide, which has assisted over 1000 companies, entrepreneurs and businesses in solar through its consulting, research and through its training programs.

 

Purchasing the Solar Mango DPR for Ground Mounted Solar Power Plants

Wish to purchase the DPR for Solar Power Plants? Talk to us – send a note to Consult@solarmango.com. Get the DPR Delivery in just 1 week.

India Renewable Energy Expert