Rajinder Kumar, chairman and managing director of Bergen Group of Companies, a technocrat turned entrepreneur, is a visionary in Indian electronics industry. He played an active role in putting India on world solar landscape by installing two GW scale Greenfield solar PV projects in a short span.  Debasish Choudhury recently caught up with him to bring out to the fore his immense contribution to India’s solar industry.

Bergen Associates is a major supplier of capital equipment for PCB manufacturing and PCB Assembly processes since its inception. When and what made you to plan a business foray for providing technology solutions to semiconductor and solar industry in India?

PV cell manufacturing process is a combination of PCB manufacturing and PCB Assembly processing besides sputtering. So, the migration from providing PCB to PV manufacturing solution was a natural progression.

Schmid, which is a leading equipment manufacturing company, provides PCB and flat panel display manufacturing solutions, stepping into providing turnkey projects for solar PV industry. In a short span, Schmid became the first company in the world to provide horizontal in-line, 100% fully automatic concept of wafer-in and cell-out technology to the industry.

Bergen Associates Pvt Ltd being the representative of Schmid for the last 20 years also automatically entered into the business of PV manufacturing solutions. Our highly trained team of over 50 engineers involved in installation and inspection over the years, were also at ease in setting up the PV lines across the country.

Can you give us an overview of the products offered by you for solar and semiconductor industry in India?

For solar and semiconductor technology, we offer the renowned technology and solutions from companies like SCHMID - turnkey solutions for PV Cell and Module assembly; diffusion and curing furnaces from SierraTherm, 3S Swiss Solar Systems for laminating line, Pasan for cell and module testing , Luvata  ribbons and tabs, ERSA soldering stations, and KIC Profilers.

KIC, the leader of thermal process development and control products, has recently appointed you as its exclusive distributor in India for photovoltaic thermal profiler. How this partnership strengthens your product offering for solar industry?

The SunKIC profiler is a useful tool for optimizing process parameters and managing thermal process, so we expect great demand for this product from the industry, especially given how easy it is to use. The SunKIC comes with a software called Spectrum that automatically selects the furnance zone temperatures and conveyor speed that will give the most optimum profile, the one that will produce the most efficient cells.

The semiconductor policy announced in 2007 has attracted investment proposals in excess of US$ 23 billion in the semiconductor sector, especially solar PV and LCD manufacturing. How did you capitalize on this windfall business opportunity?

I am happy that the semiconductor policy announced by the Government of India in 2007 has received such an overwhelming response. All these proposals have come as a follow-up of the semiconductor policy, which doles out Special Incentive Package Schemes (SIPS). Under SIPS, the government would provide an incentive of 20 percent of capital expenditure during the first 10 years for the units in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and 25 percent of the capital expenditure in non-SEZ units. Also, any unit can claim incentives in the form of capital subsidy or equity participation by the Indian government as well.

We have worked with two major players Moser Baer Photovoltaic Ltd. and IndoSolar Ltd., both set up cell manufacturing plants at Greater Noida, near New Delhi. We are installing both these projects totaling an installed capacity of 500 MW (100 MW = 25 million cells at 17% efficiency), which was the major share out of this windfall.

What are the other major project installations you are currently undertaking?

On-going expansions of our current projects in Moser Baer Photovoltaic Ltd. and IndoSolar Ltd. In addition, we are setting up the module assembly line of Ajit Solar Ltd. in Rajasthan and BHEL.

In terms of global PV production installation, India ranks 11th and commanded a market share of only 0.6% till 2008. Where do you see Indian solar PV industry by 2012?

India is going to be a major player and PV hub in the near future. I can foresee, Indian local market for PV/solar installation to reach 8GW by the end of 2012.

Do you think the Indian government has long term vision and strategy for harnessing the solar PV energy?

The mindset of the Indian authorities needs to be changed. Today, they think solar energy is very costly, but forgets the running cost of PV energy is almost zero, if used in the grid. India is an agrarian country, so the irrigation load of farmers must be put on solar. This will also reduce a lot of transmission and distribution costs since no electric lines and transformers would be required.

Secondly, the Government must amend the laws to start Feed-in-Tariffs at very lucrative rates as done by German Govt. over the years.

What are the major milestones Bergen Associates traversed in the last 25 years? Will you share your company’s future road map?

Bergen Associates is a knowledge based company with focus on customised solutions for its clients. The prominent customers Bergen Associates served are Videocon Industries Ltd., Aurangabad; 15 projects in digital telephones in collaboration with Siemens and Ericsson technology which included Nokia plant at Chennai as well. PCB projects like ECIL, AT&S, GNFC, Micropack etc. Moser Baer Photovoltaic Ltd. and IndoSolar Ltd., Ajit Solar, XL Telecom, Emmvee Solar are the highlights of the PV market. Also, we have set up sophisticated electronic circuit laboratories in all IIT’s, NIT’s, and prestigious colleges around the country.

We are thinking of undertaking module installation job in East European countries, Australia and USA in the near future. Our JV, Steca-Bergen Solar Products Pvt. Ltd. currently produces 1,000 charge controllers in a year. We expect to ramp it up to 100,000 units by the end of 2009.

Read the whole interview online on March-April 2009 issue of Global Solar Technology magazine.