JSPL to invest Rs 1000 for PV Solar plants in Bengal, HP

Kolkata, Feb 5 (UNI) Jupiter Solar Power Ltd (JSPL), a subsidiary of Jupiter International (JI), today announced to set up Photovoltaic Solar Cell manufacturing plants in West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh with an investment of Rs 1000 crore with technical collaboration from a Germany based farm, expertised in PV Solar system.

For this the JSPL today singed an MoU with Centrotherm GMBH asking the German farm to provide turnkey solutions to Jupiter for PV Cell manufacturing plants in Baddi (HP) and Kolkata, said JSPL Managing Director Alok Garodia.

The signitaries of the MoU are Centrotherm's Chief Executive Officer Hans Authenrieth and Mr Garodia.

"The major chunk of funds, around Rs 800 crore, would be invested in West Bengal", said Mr Garodia.

While Himachal Pradesh's solar manufacturing plant with an outlay of Rs 150 crore would be operational by November this year with a capacity of making 30 megawatt solar power and 84,00,000 cells per year, the production in West Bengal would start phase wise from September 2009, he added.

Mr Garodia said Kolkata's projects would come up in two phases as a PV Solar Cell manufacturing plant with a capacity of 60 MW per year and 40 MW of PV Modules per year with targeted operational time from September 2009.This would later be expanded with additional capacity of 120 MW per year for Cell, another 60 MW in thin Film Technology and lastly 80 MW of PV Modules to be operational from September 2010.

He said for the Kolkata plant, the company needed some 25 acres of land in and around the city.

Mr Garodia said his company JI, based in the city is one of the largest IT peripheral distribution farms, launched JSPL to make a new foray in solar power, which would be India's future energy resources in the next ten years considering stringent regulations on pollution control in the new world order.

Photo Voltaic is a non-polluting source of power and has the capacity to produce electricity directly as widely used form of energy. World energy consumption is expected to rise by 59 per cent between 1999 and 2020 and PV is projected to be a significant contributor.

Mr Authenrieth of Centrotherm GMBH said besides providing technical expertise to the JSPL, it might also take part in promoting the company if situation demanded.

UNI PC KK RN1843