BEL mulls Rs 1,500-cr JV in solar energy space

To produce 2,500 tonnes of polysilicon used in solar panels.

City-based public sector undertaking (PSU), Bharat Electronics (BEL), said it is planning a major investment in the solar energy space in a tie-up with another PSU, Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel).

BEL is in the process of setting up a greenfield facility to produce 2,500 tonnes of polycrystalline silicon (also known as polysilicon), the main raw material for making solar panels, at an investment of Rs 1,500 crore. This translates into 250 mw of power.

This will be the first major facility for manufacturing a raw material for solar panels by BEL, which is a leading manufacturer of solar panels in the country.

C Nageshwara Rao, general manager, BEL, said: "We have held preliminary discussions with Bhel for setting up a 50:50 joint venture company to execute this project. We expect this project to take final shape in the next few months and the plant needs around 2-3 years to start production." The details of the JV are currently being finalised.

BEL, which has a cash reserves of Rs 3,192.95 crore at the end of March 2008, is also in the process of identifying a suitable location for the plant, he said.

"We need to set up this plant at a place where there is non-stop supply of power at lower prices, as this is a power-intensive sector," Rao told Business Standard.

He said the proposed polysilicon material manufacturing facility will be an integrated unit that will produce polysilicon ingots, wafers, solar cells, modules and solar panel systems. The company, besides exports, will mainly sell the solar systems to government agencies that are engaged in the popularisation of solar energy. Currently, BEL is exporting solar cells to countries like Germany, France and Italy. While there is a demand for 1,00,000 solar cells per month, BEL is exporting 50,000 solar cells, he said.

Currently, BEL has an installed capacity for 5 mw solar cells per annum at its Bangalore complex, where the modules are manufactured. It is also in the process of expanding this capacity to 30 mw per annum at an investment of Rs 100 crore. BEL is currently importing solar grade polysilicon wafers from Germany and Japan at an estimated $6.5 per wafer.

Over the past one year there had been a huge increase in the prices of polysilicon in the global market. The prices have gone up from $25 per kg in 2000 to $515 per kg in June 2008.

Major global polysilicon manufacturers include Hemlock Semiconductor Corporation, Wacker Chemie, REC, Tokuyama, MEMC, Mitsubishi (Japan and America) and Sumitomo Corporation, as well as several small sites in China and former Soviet states.

The top seven companies cover over 75 per cent of the global production of polysilicon.

It is expected that by 2015 as many as 175 new manufacturers are entering this sector, including BEL.