India’s National Solar Mission

600 million people without power – and those were the ones expecting to have power. I’m not going to join the chorus of critical voices reacting to two of the world’s largest power black-outs this week in India. While surely there is ample blame to go around, it’s not really clear what happened. It could have been the lack of infrastructure investment, the light monsoon weather causing farmers to use more electricity for pumping irrigation water or states taking more than their allotted share of electricity from the grid. But one thing is clear, this power outage ground India’s economy to a halt, left 10% of the world’s population without power and rolled through 22 of India’s 28 states. And that’s not counting the 300 million people there who have no regular access to electricity.

Recognizing the need for research and development as well as education and training for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) in India to be successful, the ministry of New and Renewable Energy created the "National Center for Photovoltaic (PV) Research and Education" (NCPRE) at the IIT Bombay campus. Professor Devang V. Khakhar, Director at IIT Bombay formed an advisory committee comprising of eminent members from both academia and industry, to oversee the center’s direction. Dr. Madhusudan Atre, president of Applied Materials in India was recently appointed as a member of this prestigious committee.

Applied Materials chairman and CEO, Mike Splinter, in an interview with Shereen Bhan on CNBC’s special show Forbes India discusses the semiconductor market, the solar industry and doing business with India. Visit CNBC’s web site to watch the interview or to access a transcript.

The history of the semiconductor industry in India dates back to the 1980s, when multinational giants from the U.S. started outsourcing chip design and software development to India, so that the country’s technical talent pool could be tapped. Initially work in this area was centered on software development directly tied to hardware. It included development of automation tools, modeling and simulation, and embedded software, to name a few products. Over the years, the scope of these projects has expanded with several semiconductor companies in India adopting high-end product development. Since its origin in the country, the industry has been growing at a steady pace. The ISAFrost & Sullivan report estimated the Indian semiconductor market to be worth $4.56 bn in 2007. This figure rose to $5.9 bn by 2008 at a compound annual growth rate of 13.4%, and to $7.59 bn by 2010.

The Government of India hosted the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference (DIREC) 2010 recently on the theme of "Up-scaling and Mainstreaming Renewables for Energy Security, Climate Change and Economic Development". The show was the most significant event on renewable energy ever held in India, attracted more than 9,000 delegates and had more than 250 speakers and 600 exhibitors from 50 countries – including ministerial delegations from several countries.

In celebration of India’s 63rd anniversary of Independence, The Times of India, Bangalore edition, featured articles from several leading high tech companies on how technology is helping to further advance the country’s freedom. AppliedMaterials' Dr. Madhusudan Atre, President of Applied Materials India contributed a piece titled, Move Towards Secure Solar Power.

A few weeks ago I attended India’s largest solar energy focused business and technology event, SOLARCON India 2010. This was the second year SOLARCON was held in India and I was pleased with the positive energy, momentum and great dialogue around the conference.

Applied Materials Chairman and CEO, Mike Splinter, discusses the solar industry in India and its potential to be at the center of this explosion in demand for solar generated energy, in an interview with Business Today — India’s No. 1 business magazine.

The Government of India had announced the launch of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and the first phase of the mission is under implementation. One of the key targets in the first phase is to have 1,000MW of grid connected photovoltaics (PV) by 2013.