Live Questions for Solar Industry AMA with Oaklane Capital/Kuntal Shah Oct 25 3-5 pm

Q&A with Practitioners/Domain Experts
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Please use this thread to put up questions for the LIVE Solar Industry AMA session (3-5 pm, Oct 25) here. Many Thanks

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  1. Which segment/part of the Solar value chain has the highest potential?
  2. Where do the value lies today - in which part of Value chain - in Solar space where the new allocation should be made?
  3. Who is the potential leader from listed space?

Thanks.

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Can there be dynamic electricity pricing in India in future?

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Thank you so much for this initiative Donald sir. A few questions from my side in case we want to use them

  1. Tech obsolescence risk: The technology of solar cells evolves every few years. Right now we are in a time where topcon is gaining favor though monoperc is currently largest used type of solar cells. In such a scenario how does a backward integrated solar module manufacturer derive sufficient economic value from solar cells capex?
  2. There are various factors which will together determine whether we are demand surplus or supply surplus in the solar energy market. Currently we are demand surplus, with large supply expected to come in 2 years with large build up in capacity (source: Ishmohit Arora on LinkedIn: 3 Key Learnings From A Visit To A Renewables Exhibition The Solar Energy…). On the other hand, at a higher level of reasoning, there are some scientific evidences that CO2 sinks of the world are failing (source: Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? | Oceans | The Guardian) & current targets of green energy investment may thus be insufficient to meet the fast energy decarbonisation goals. How do we accurately track the composite of these multi variate different time scale forces which exert positive & negative influences on the agregate demand supply mismatch
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Can you throw some light on Solar Cell manufacturing in India? Does this look like a promising area to look at?

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Thanks a lot Kuntalbhai -

  1. How do you value a business like a Solar Manufacturer - what is the heuristic that one should use?
  2. What can go wrong with the solar thesis?
  3. What goes into making a Deep Dive note?
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What’s the level of impact of solar glass dumping on manufacturers in India like Borosil Renewables? It seems that even after the 10% import duty, the cost of imported solar glass from China is still lower. What’s the outlook here? Is the only solution anti-dumping duty or can we make Solar glass at lower cost?

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I have three queries as below:

-Given the import duty hikes and prohibition of China specific restrictions imposed by some of the largest solar cell/module end-user countries such as US, where would the largest Chinese manufacturers e.g. Tongwei, Trina etc could dump/direct their current inventories?
-Per my current understanding solar cell manufacturing cost in India would be 4x that of China. How likely would this cost come down or be comparable to that of China in coming 18-24 months? Do we have an expected scalability projection and/or govt policy support to make that possible?

-If crude price breaks down to below 60USD sat early next year, do you see an significant detrimental impact of solar manufacturing and profitability in India?

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Q.1 Do we have an idea on the Cost Structure and Profit Margins on the various processes on Solar Manufacturing and installation and whether there are any listed peer companies for across the world to compare the valuation with for each of the processes

For e.g some of the lifecycle stages

  1. Poly Silicon Manufacturing
  2. Ingot Manufacturing
  3. Cell Manufacturing
  4. Module Manufacturing
  5. Inverter and which technology
  6. Transformers ( Inverter Duty Transformers / Power Transformers )
  7. EPC Players
  8. Service & Maintenance
  9. Any other

Q2. Also which are the proxy industries like Solar Cables etc which can be the beneficiaries to the growth in the Solar Industry

Q3. For Solar farms & commercial projects, what is the % of String Based Inverter vs Central Inverters

Q4. I guess different type of Transformers are required in a Solar Project . Considering this , what is the contribution of Inverter Duty Transformers ( Step Up transformer ) & Power Transformers in a Solar Project.

Q5. What is the market size of Rooftop Solar Projects & Solar Pumps ? What are the margins in the Resedential space

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How does the efficiency of Solar cell/modules change over a period of time (5 years-10-years etc after installation) and also do the players like Waaree/Premier Energies have any backended liabilites attached to the operational efficiency of the components supplied by them?

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Do the penewable energy producers (Tata Power, Adani Green etc) stand to advantage (Vis-à-vis traditional players using Thermal/Coal etc.) from the decline in global decline in module prices? Spready between Cost of production and selling price etc.

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What is the steady margins for Solar EPC companies as the margins reported by SW Solar and Waaree Technologies are very different?

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What is the feasibility of Solar+ Energy Storage Combination to replace Thermal Power in future?
What do you think will be the sustainable demand per year for solar panels after we achieve the 500Gw target?

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