The company "� a joint venture between Tata Power and British Petroleum "� would finalise the location for the facility soon, said Arvind Karandikar, head of the western region for Tata BP Solar. | |
| "We have identified two sites at Hinjewadi and Moshi (near Chakan) and will make the final choice in the next one month or so," Karandikar said. |
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| Pune will be the second location in India to have a Tata BP Solar manufacturing plant. The company has a plant at its headquarters at Bangalore, where it makes both thermal systems and power solutions. The Pune plant will make only thermal (water heating) systems. |
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| Karandikar informed that the company had decided to install a capacity to make 1,600 collectors (glass panels that house the heating systems) a month at an initial capital outlay of Rs 2 crore. |
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| The entire capital investment would be in plant and machinery as the company would use premises leased on a long-term commitment, he added. The plant would go operational in about one year from now, Karandikar said. |
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| Pointing to the huge real estate development taking place in the western Maharashtra region, he said the solar water heating systems sales are expected to zoom in the coming two years or so. |
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| "We see great scope in residential, institutional, hospitality and healthcare-oriented real estate construction as well as the increasing tendency to install the systems at existing buildings," Karandikar said. |
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| The Bangalore plant has capacity to manufacture 1,800 collectors a month on a single shift basis, which is fully exhausted, he said. Karandikar said the production at the Pune facility would be meant to cater to the company's markets in the west, central and north regions. |
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| Karandikar informed that the civic authorities in Pune as well as Mumbai were very close to making solar water heating compulsory for all the structures in the two cities. "Thane Municipal Corporation has recently done this, opening a great opportunity for us," he said. |
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| Disclosing that the western region's contribution to the company's annual turnover of Rs 430 crore is Rs 15 crore a year, Karandikar said the share would rise with growing activity in the region. |
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| He said the thermal systems and power solutions businesses had equal shares in the company's total business in the western region. |
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| Karandikar, however, ruled out the possibility of power solutions manufacturing coming to Pune, as the investments required to manufacture these units would be untenable at the current juncture. |
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