Intersolar India 2018: The Key Event that Helps the Industry Grow Renewable Energy Business

Intersolar India organized its 10th Anniversary event in Bangalore. Bangalore, variously known as the IT, Innovation hub as well as Silicon Valley of India, has been associated with solar since the early nineties and since then has been part of the Indian solar growth story. 

The state of Karnataka also achieved the distinction of being the state with the highest solar installed capacity in India. It is therefore a tribute to the state of Karnataka and the city of Bangalore that Intersolar’s 10th Anniversary is held in Bangalore. The three-day exhibition and conference will open on 11th December. Over 300 exhibitors will participate and highlight their products and innovations in the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre. 

The co-located conference welcomes over 170 expert speakers and 1000 conference delegates in over 35 sessions and workshops. The event is designed to meet the varying needs of the various stakeholders: industry professionals, consultants, manufacturers, suppliers, developers, distributors, contractors, installers, integrators, financiers and investors but also, academicians, students and the large community of end users.

The solar industry in India has been rapidly growing in the past five years. 10 GW of solar was added in 2017 and the total installed capacity now stands at 26 GW, with the ground mount systems accounting for a significant 22.5 GW.  From being an insignificant market, India rose to become the third largest market globally in 2017. India also has stamped its role as a global driver of Solar establishing along with France, the International Solar Alliance. 

The growth in 2018 however slowed down owing particularly to issues like anti-dumping duties, interpretation of tax laws and cap on tariff.  This year, therefore is witnessing a lower capacity addition of 7-8GW. With the 2021 deadline for 100 GW target approaching fast, the capacity addition has to be ramped up. The growth of the rooftop segment with a significant 40 GW target is hampered. There is therefore a need for all stakeholders to work together to stabilize the market dynamics. 

Driven by rising air quality and energy security concern, the importance of EV and energy storage is growing and government is drawing policies to drive these markets. These two segments together provide new growth opportunities for the solar companies. Also floating PV and agro PV are emerging new opportunities. 

The Intersolar India conference will have presentations and discussions by experts on key topics that would include India’s PV demand outlook, national energy storage mission, residential, commercial and industrial rooftops, new market opportunities like agro PV and floating PV, trackers, microgrids and hybrids. The 2018 Intersolar Executive Panel discussion will focus on “India's Renewable Energy Future”. In parallel to the conference, many Intersolar India content partners provide workshops on energy storage, quality assurance and standardization, de-risking investments, achieving excellence in rooftop  installations, PV manufacturing and quality standards, microgrids will be organized in collaboration with reputed institutions like India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), TERI - The Energy and Resources Institute, Skill Council for Green Jobs (SCGJ), Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), Fraunhofer and the Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE).

In another parallel track Kerala state’s renewable energy implementing agency ANERT will introduce their organization and also explain their various solar programs under the title “Rebuilding Kerala with Green Energy”.  Swissnex of the Swiss Consul General will similarly organize two workshops, one on solar rooftop solutions and building energy efficiency and best practices in battery manufacturing.

Among the more than 170 speakers are Vinay Rustagi, MD Bridge to India, Daniel Liu, Strategy Director Jinko Solar, Atul Arya, Head Energy Storage-Panasonic India, Dr. Anuvrat Joshi, Director-Cleantech Solar Dr. Ashok Das, Founder-Sunmoksha, Dr Alejandro Santis, Head Projects- BFH-Energy Storage Research Centre and Dr. Arul Shanmugasundaram, CTO-Tata Power Solar.

An exclusive program for students to promote the next generation of solar professionals and entrepreneurs has been arranged. Students will get an opportunity to learn from successful young entrepreneurs on their journey in building successful solar business and interact with them. Furthermore an intensive PV training program organized by White House Solar, a leading PV training institution in the US, will cover basics of PV, market development, different types of PV systems and their installation with hands-on demonstration over the two-day training.

Another added attraction is the 1st India Africa Youth Energy Symposium under which two panel discussions will be held one on  “Bottlenecks in Energy Law and Policy” and another on Decentralization of Energy Infrastructure and Capacity Building – Role of Industry and Academia“.

The conference and workshops will take place in Gulmohar, Cassia, Hibiscus and Parijatha Hall in the Conference Centre of the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC).

Numerous exhibitors will make a presentation on their innovations and products at the Innovation Stage at Booth 2064 covering a wide range of topics including EV charging, AI and IOT based solutions, innovative materials for roofing and solar thermal systems, energy measurement and management, cleaning and system maintenance, inverters and power electronic systems.

Each of the Intersolar India Conference Tickets enables access to the 10th Anniversary Networking Reception and Solar Power Developer’s night on the first exhibition and conference day. Conference delegates, VIPs and exhibitors will be able to celebrate 10 powerful years of Intersolar India with drinks, finger food and a great atmosphere.

With a well-rounded conference touching upon key current topics and focused workshops that address specific areas of interest, the Intersolar India conference offers a platform and meeting point for enhancing knowledge, share valuable learnings and success stories and finding solutions to challenges helping the solar industry grow.

Vivo Bolsters its Manufacturing in India, Announces Additional Investment of Rs 40 Billion for New Plant

Vivo, the innovative global smartphone brand, is excited to announce the initialization of their second manufacturing facility in India. The company has acquired additional 169-acre of land in the Yamuna Expressway region in Uttar Pradesh with an estimated investment of Rs 4000 crore (not including land cost). Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath welcomed the initiative and congratulated Vivo for the upcoming facility.

The new land has been acquired near the existing 50-acre manufacturing facility and will help expand Vivo’s manufacturing capabilities and support Vivo’s continued growth in India.

Commenting on the announcement, Nipun Marya, Director-Brand Strategy, Vivo India said, “Vivo entered India in 2014 with a commitment to bring product innovation, focus and value to our consumers. India is a key market for us, and today we have reiterated our commitment by entering the next phase of growth in India, all the while aligning ourselves with the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Additionally, we’re proud that the new plant will offer a major benefit to the surrounding area through high-quality job creation and training opportunities.”

All Vivo smartphones sold in the country are manufactured at the Greater Noida facility which is one of Vivo’s four manufacturing facilities globally.

Vivo’s new manufacturing facility will help achieve its vision of providing best-in-class mobile phones with an affordable pricing in addition to the already existing facility at Greater Noida. The existing manufacturing set-up, which saw an investment of Rs 300 crore already functions at a capacity of 2 million units per month with more than 5,000 workforce.

Vivo will also contribute significantly to the socio-economic growth of the manufacturing ecosystem in India by way of creating additional jobs, wage growth and skill development for factory floor workers as it hopes to generate 5000 additional employment in the first phase of expansion. During this phase, Vivo also plans to double the current production capacity to 50 million units per annum.

HSIL’s Benelave Signs on Bollywood Actor Shraddha Kapoor as the Brand Ambassador

Benelave, from the house of HSIL, the largest ceramics in India, has signed leading Bollywood actor Shraddha Kapoor as its brand ambassador to elevate brand awareness and visibility.

Benelave offers a wide range of bath space products to suit the needs of value-seeking consumers. It is a brand for young Indians who are looking for good designs coupled with modern aesthetics for their bathrooms.

Commenting on the new association, Sandip Somany, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, HSIL Limited said, “Shraddha is one of India’s most loved youth icon, and we believe that our core audience resonates with her grounded and girl-next-door personality. We are excited as this association will enable us explore new avenues for our continued growth and success.”

He further added, “Benelave is on a high growth trajectory and is doing extremely well in in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities since its launch a few years ago. Shraddha’s versatile acting skills have made her extremely popular among the masses and this association will help us widen our existing consumer base”

“HSIL is one of the most trusted and iconic companies in India and I am delighted to be their brand ambassador. It is great to see that HSIL is not only committed towards delivering unmatched designs and quality in their offerings, but also towards creating welcoming bath spaces for the entire family.” said Shraddha Kapoor on the new partnership.

Shraddha will be the face of Benelave’s upcoming campaigns. She joins the likes of Shahrukh Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez among others, who already front HSIL various bath space brands. 

Benelave encompasses the entire bathroom category with various offerings under faucets, showers, sanitaryware, accessories and allied products. Over the years, HSIL Limited has bolstered its distribution network for Benelave with 100 distributors and 2500 retailers across 300 cities.

Array's Virtual Application Delivery Controller Now Available on Google Cloud Platform Marketplace

Array Networks Inc., a network functions platform company, today announced the immediate availability of its vAPV virtual application delivery controller on the Google Cloud Marketplace. Running on Google Compute Engine, Array's virtual ADC provides organizations deploying applications or services on Google Cloud the ability to enhance the availability, performance and security of these applications and services either in a pure public cloud environment or in conjunction with private datacenters. What's more, the availability of the vAPV virtual application delivery controller on Google Cloud Platform enables new deployment models for customers seeking portability and utility pricing for applications and services.

Array's vAPV is a full featured, all-in-one ADC product that offers a broad range of functions such as Layer 3 through 7 server load balancing, content routing, SSL offloading and bridging, caching and compression, multi-layer security, clustering and high availability, link load balancing and global server load balancing (GSLB). This functionality is critical as organizations increasingly move to private, public and hybrid cloud architectures. These enterprises need solutions that allow services and applications to scale to accommodate growing user bases. Array's vAPV virtual load balancer intelligently load balances traffic loads across multiple virtual servers, allowing applications and services to scale up, scale down, or scale out on the fly.

"We are very pleased to join the Google Cloud Platform Marketplace and offer our application delivery solutions that are optimized for Google Cloud," said Paul Andersen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Array Networks. "The ability to deploy on Google Cloud is an important step toward our vision of supporting our customers' business-critical applications whenever and wherever they choose to deploy them."

Array's vAPV virtual application delivery controller has been verified for compatibility with Google Cloud, helping to ensure reliability and ease of deployment and use. Array offers perpetual, monthly and yearly subscription licenses on a bring-your-own-license (BYOL) basis for Google Cloud.

OBOPAY Launches New Generation Pre-Payment Instrument for Enterprise Customers

In an effort to empower enterprises with a comprehensive disbursement and payments solution, OBOPAY, the global financial technology company, today announced the launch of a new generation pre-payment instrument in partnership with Federal Bank and Mastercard.

Enterprises often have to deal with legacy systems for disbursements and payments to employees and ecosystem partners. At the same time, users have to use different modes for different payments like, bank accounts for using salary, digital wallets for payments, food coupons, insurance cards for insurance claim, etc. All these existing solutions are restrictive in terms of their usage and there are gaps existing in these systems. The OBOPAY card is built as a one-stop solution that addresses all needs of the enterprise and users seamlessly and can be used at over three million Mastercard outlets in India.

The highlights of the card include unique innovations such as the multi-wallet facility that allows dedicated payments and allocation of money for various purposes, the ‘Split transaction’ feature which provides payment flexibility to users and multiple payment scenarios among many others. While Cardholders will be able to use the OBOPAY card as a prepaid card, the card will also provide them with a host of additional features such as card to card money transfer, making online payments, withdrawing cash at ATMs among many others. The card can be availed by all the business entities including corporate, distributor – retailer ecosystem, colleges, factories etc. The account can be operated with zero minimum balance and the users will not be levied any service charge on usage. 

Commenting on the card launch, Shailendra Naidu, CEO, OBOPAY, said “Launch of OBOPAY card is another significant landmark in our journey as it reinstates our position as a global mobile payment solutions company. We are delighted to join hands with Mastercard and Federal Bank for promoting digitization and creating a robust digital payments solution which will provide end users with the highest level of convenience. OBOPAY will play a vital role in facilitating the program management and customer life cycle management for the end-users. The Card is a customer-centric innovation from OBOPAY and we are keen that it helps us do our bit for the cause of Financial Inclusion.”

Vikas Varma, Senior Vice President, South Asia, Mastercard said, “Mastercard is excited to partner with OBOPAY and Federal Bank to provide a convenient and safe payment method to the Indian consumers. OBOPAY card will encourage the use of digital payments for several needs, where the consumers often use cash. This initiative also highlights Mastercard’s continuous commitment to bring digitally empowered financial inclusion to life, especially in tier 2 & 3 cities in India.

Nilufer Mullanfiroze, Senior Vice President, Federal Bank, said, “We are pleased to partner with OBOPAY and Mastercard for promoting payments throughprepaid cards. The card will act as a holistic solution to tackle issues in existing card payment systems in India. The prepaid card can serve multiple purposes such as food coupons,online purchases, fuel purchase, payments to cab aggregators, pharmacies, hospitals, online purchases etc. As a digital payment option, it is a firm step towards less-cash society. ”

The OBOPAY card is a holistic payment ecosystem in itself as it caters to the needs of users, corporates and merchants and addresses multiple payment gaps that exist for corporates, distribution companies, EPC players, Pharma industry etc., which do not have a complete solution for all types of disbursements and payments to their employees, daily wage earners, distributors, retailers, doctors, etc. OBOPAY card is an answer to all the aforesaid concerns. The card has multi-wallets facility with each wallet having the potential to handle a distinct and specific role/ usage as required. Users can use this card for multiple payments such as, bank accounts for using salary, digital wallets for payments, food coupons for food coupons, insurance cards for insurance claim, etc.

Royal Stag ‘Makes it Large’ for Cricket Fans by Partnering with ICC as Official Sponsors

Royal Stag has partnered with the International Cricket Council (ICC) that further strengthens the brand’s ties with Cricket, the sport loved by more than one billion adult fans the world over. The partnership, which runs through 2023, confirms Royal Stag as official sponsors of cricket's international events, including the upcoming big-ticket calendar events – the ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC T20 World Cup and ICC World Test Championship.

Cricket has always been central to Royal Stag’s brand communication. Over the years, the brand’s continuous association with the world’s top cricketers has bolstered its engagement with cricket lovers across the country.

“Royal Stag has always stood by its brand philosophy of “Make It Large” – inspiring people to dream large and be the creators of their own destiny. In India cricket transcends from being a sport to a religion, with an ever-increasing set of devoted cricket lovers. Our journey with cricket started in 2000 and since then we have only strengthened our brand associations with the sport, creating a huge impact on cricket fans across the country”, says Kartik Mohindra, CMO, Pernod Ricard India.

Commenting on the deal, Kartik Mohindra further added, “Our aim is to share the excitement of the game with cricket fans around the world. Partnering with ICC, one of the most coveted sports bodies in the world, allows us to deliver a truly “Make it Large” experience for die-hard cricket fans, especially with the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup around the corner”.

On this momentous occasion, Guillaume Girard-Reydet, MD, Pernod Ricard India said, “We are delighted to partner with the prestigious International Cricket Council, and look forward to an action-packed calendar in the next five years of which two events in India only. As India gets ready to host two of these upcoming tournaments, this partnership firmly cements our position in the international sports arena. We continue to stay committed to the sport and cherish the spirit of the game.”

Commenting on the agreement, David Richardson, Chief Executive, International Cricket Council, said: "The ICC is pleased to welcome Royal Stag on board as our Proud Partner. We look forward to working together for the next five years in delivering a meaningful experience to cricket fans across ICC global events.”

ThoughtWorks’ First Ever ‘Interning with Pride’ Program Concludes with Job Offers to all Interns

ThoughtWorks, a global software consultancy celebrated the completion of ‘Interning with Pride,’ a unique internship program designed exclusively for candidates from the LGBTQI+ community. The unique 5-month program was organized at the company’s Hyderabad office with an aim to provide graduates with a safe space to pursue their technical ambitions.

The program received 57 entrees out of which a total of 4 were shortlisted. The program helped interns sharpen their programming skills through hands-on sessions on object-oriented programming practices and principles. It also provided them with exposure to both, agile practices and the latest industry trends. After successful completion of the internship, ThoughtWorks extended job offers to all 4 interns.

Speaking on completion of the successful pilot internship program, Tina Vinod, Diversity and Inclusion Head at ThoughtWorks India said, “We always have and will continue to stand in solidarity with India’s LGBTQI+ community. We truly hope the success of our ‘Interning with Pride’ program encourages many more organizations to run similar initiatives that will embrace and promote diversity in all its forms.”

During the course of the paid internship, candidates were provided with accommodations, laptops and travel support.

Karthik D and Jayanthi, who were amongst the 4 interns extended job offers, they said, “‘Interning With Pride’ helped hone our technical and communication skills amidst open conversations. The intensive training program was set in an environment that encouraged discussion of the LGBTQI+ history, culture, and issues. This experience affirmed our belief in the power of LGBTQI+ allies. We are extremely excited to work at ThoughtWorks and are proud to have been part of the pilot ‘Interning with Pride’ program.”

ThoughtWorkers, Archana Chillala and Srujan Kumar Bojjam who anchored the ‘Interning with Pride’ program added to this positive sentiment by saying, “This internship program has helped us engineer a more aware and inclusive workplace than we had before. At every step of the project, our intention was to ensure the safety and comfort of all the interns which in turn empowered them to bring their authentic selves to work, and do their best work as they felt both, comfortable and confident. Today, we are extremely proud to have such passionate and inquisitive technologists join us as full-time employees.”

‘Interning with Pride’ aligns with ThoughtWorks’ core belief that diversity of thoughts, perspectives, ideas, and solutions enhance innovation. The program is part of ThoughtWorks’ efforts to make the company and the technology industry more inclusive and reflective of the society that we live in. For updates on future editions of the internship program, watch this space.