Solar-Arise, a fast growing Solar Independent Power Producer (IPP) is backed by marquee infrastructure funds. Sensing that industry consolidation was eventually going to happen, Solar Arise made a bid to acquire a 5 MW project in Rajasthan in 2014. It sought out Gensol’s expertise to run Technical Due Diligence on the plant to understand design, past performance, quality and improvements that it can make overtime to the plant based on which it finalized its price bid.

Gurgaon-based SolarArise is backed by marquee infrastructure funds including Core Infrastructure India Fund Pte Ltd. - fund sponsored by Kotak Mahindra - and Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund - a fund advised by European Investment Bank Group -  to invest in solar PV projects in India. Started by experienced solar entrepreneurs, Solar Arise was intending to grow fast in 2014. While developing greenfield projects in parallel, it decided to give inorganic growth a shot with a bid to acquire a 5 MW project in Rajasthan.

Gensol - an old and trusted advisor for Solar Arise promoters - was appointed to conduct a thorough Due Diligence of the project which included:

• Review of design / engineering documents and identify opportunities for plant retrofitting and upgrading.
• Review of expected and actual performance of the plant.
• Site inspection for construction quality, adequacy of infrastructure, operation and maintenance review.
• Review of drawings, O&M manuals, installation manuals, spare part inventory, test reports and certificates to check for Documentation comprehensiveness.
• Review of Permits required and available for the project
• Each equipment of plant was studied and recommendations made such as:
• Modules: Shadow incidences on Modules, Module Breakage, String mismatch, Incomplete strings, Clamping inadequacies
• Inverters: Cooling of Inverter Rooms, Cable Terminations, Ducting, Subsystem level checks
• Structure: Checking for corrosion and foundation integrity
• Cabling: Exposed cables, broken conduits, Missing glands
• String Monitoring Box: Cable Tightness & Dressing and Marking & Ferruling
• Transformers & HT: Transformer Foundation structural integrity and fire protection & alarm systems.
• SCADA: Frequency of data collection & storage, cross checking for comprehensiveness & correctness of data

Not only did Gensol review the project from Design, Quality, Performance and Compliance perspective, but we also made recommendations with financial pay back on how to improve generation and health. Based on Gensol’s report, Solar Arise finalized its financial bid.Solar Arise has subsequently appointed Gensol for preparation of Detailed Project Report and Project Management for its other projects across the country.