Radiant eyes mega solar projects

It has executed numerous solar projects for educational institutions, govt bodies and others till date

Anjali Gandhi Nambiar, Director, Radiant Solar, has over 15 years of experience in sales and marketing. She worked for Fortune 500 companies, including Robert Half International, where she was recognized as a Top Producer in the Presidents Sales Club for the company worldwide, Hudson Global Resources and Astrowix. She has rich experience in wide range of skills including business development, public relations, project management and human resources. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi and an MBA from International Management Institute in New Delhi. Recently, she also completed an entrepreneurship programme from Indian School of Business, which was sponsored by Goldman Sachs. In the wake of sever power cuts in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Nambiar talks to Lata Jain on alternate power generation which is the need of hour in both the states.

Can you throw some light on the 75 power plants that your company has installed till now?

Radiant Solar is a Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) approved channel partner for Indian government. Based in Hyderabad, we are a design, manufacturing and integration company for residential, commercial and industrial power generation through land and roof top solar installations. Our plant is located at FAB city SEZ in Hyderabad. Our company is committed to promoting green energy choices to combat global warming. We are currently the market leader in certain geographies in Kerala and Southern India. Some of the big projects we had executed include a 100kW solar power plant for Mar Baselios College of Engineering and Technology in Trivandrum, 100kW for Pushpagiri Medical College in Tiruvalla, 80kW for MES College of Engineering, Kuttipuram, 63kW for Jyothi Engineering College, Thrissur and 30kW for Thangam Hospital in Palakkad, 30kW for MACFAST, Tiruvalla and 20kW for Sagar group of colleges in Hyderabad. We also executed 30kW plant at Parijatha Hotel, Bangalore, 25kW at MCIL Corporation, New Delhi, 15kW for Govt of Kerala(ANERT) and scores of other projects.

All these projects are running successfully with absolutely little or no downtime and all these are MNRE subsidy approved projects. Our clients have commended us and appreciated us for the seamless service provided to them for easing out all the procedural issues that were tackled by the Radiant Solar Team with élan. All the subsidy paperwork is handled at our end. We also have our installations at Administrative Staff College of India, Indian Army, Technopark Trivandrum, ICRISAT in Hyderabad and hundred other installations across India.

How and when did you start the company? What are the areas you deal with?

The company was set up in CA, USA in 2007. We started out as a system integration company and then concentrated our focus solely on solar power plants. We have recently started manufacturing ‘A’ Grade solar modules for local consumption and exports. Our focus through the years has been on quality products and excellent customer service. 90 per cent of our team is engineers and they know what they are doing as opposed to the general scenario in the renewable energy sector. Our main success is attributed to our team.

What were the early challenges you faced?

The solar industry has been growing fast. Record amounts of new solar capacity have been installed over the past two years. The accelerating pace of adoption of solar panels for distributed generation (installed at the point of use, rather than sold into the power grid) and the downward trend of module prices have created exuberance over the industry’s future. Solar power has reached and eclipsed price parity with traditional fuel sources in some markets, and ultimately the potential market for solar PV is huge. It is clear that the future is very bright for the industry. What is less clear is when growth will accelerate and how near term challenges for the industry could create some rough patches for the industry before widespread adoption drives truly explosive industry growth.

These two merging dynamics – dropping solar costs and rising utility rates for electricity - have caught the eye of more than a few investors and analysts. Return of Investment is now being achieved within four years so people are seeing the sense in investing in clean energy. The challenge has been that small companies like ours have struggled while collecting subsidy from MNRE. Collection of MNRE-approved funds takes a long time at the Govt-end and this creates working capital problems for companies like ours. In Australia, subsidy is released by the Govt in a month! On the upside, we are very excited about how this industry will shape up now that Narendra Modi government has promised to take solar to the next level.

Tell us about some of the major projects that your company has undertaken…

We are known for our Institutional work in the industry. From Solarizing India’s first engineering college in Kerala to setting up 100kW plus power plants for several other colleges, hospitals, schools, hotels, residences; our focus has always been on delivering quality installations to our clients.

Tell us about your association with Australia-based Regen Power…

Regen Power Australia is our financial and technology collaborator. It is a design, development and system integration company focused on power conversion, monitoring and management needs of the renewable energy market. Prof. Chem Nayar, Professor Emeritus, Curtin University, is an authority in renewable energy like solar and wind. He is the Chairman of Regen Power and has several patents to his name. Our strategic partner is Thailand-based Leonics Company Limited. Leonics is a pioneer in power electronics with experience implementing large power farms of megawatt capacity in various Asian countries. We are extremely proud of our association with them as our focus is to deliver the best money can buy to our end customer.

When will we see households using solar energy in their day-to-day activity in India?

In the next 5 to 10 years, the landscape for RE will be very different from now. Unlike Germany which is one of the biggest users of solar, sunshine is fortunately abundant in India. We need to take a leaf from Germany’s efforts and solarize our homes. I live in a solar home and everything except my ACs run on my power plant. I pay a maximum of Rs 4-5000 in the summer months for a five bedroom villa. In the winter months, the bills are negligible. The best part is the whole process is seamless. The switch from the grid to solar to batteries is automatic the way we set it up. Architects and builders need to plan better and incorporate green buildings in their design aspects for a sustainable future.

Tell us about the products you offer. What is competition like?

We manufacture and export quality solar modules. We have seen the advent of many companies in the last few years in this space as it’s a lucrative industry. Competition is healthy as it forces you to innovate and be creative and strive for excellence in your space. But we have seen that very few companies go the extra mile for their customers the way we do in educating them on what’s the best solution for them. We are proud to say our team is solid when it comes to designing a quality solar system for our clients. Each proposal we design for our clients goes through three rounds of quality control before being submitted to the client. We might be an expensive option but we are definitely a most quality competitive and reliable bet. We always use the example of a Mercedes and Maruti.

What are your plans for the future?

Our plan is to grow over the years and execute large mega watt projects to supply power to the utility grid and to manufacture next generation modules.