I was extremely thrilled when recently informed that Photonics Media is among the media partners at the forthcoming Solarcon India 2009, which will be held at the Hyderabad International Conference Center, in Hyderabad, India, Nov. 9-11. Thrilled – because I am closely associated with the Solarcon India 2009 event and well, I blog for Photonics.com! So, twice the fun, so to say! A word about solar in India and Solarcon India 2009, if not in this, then in forthcoming posts. Firstly, it is very well known that India already has the advantage of being a well established, low-cost producer and assembler of solar PV cells and modules. At a recent conference in Hamburg, Germany, B.V. Naidu, chairman, India Semiconductor Association (ISA), informed the gathering that it is also very likely that grid-connected power would emerge as the major segment in India over the next few years. There you go! Grid-connected power is the key word here! I have actually blogged a lot about the dual significance of solar and LEDs on Photonics.com – as far as the Indian context is concerned. Otherwise, I blog/write a lot about solar energy on my blog. Anyhow, I am not here to promote myself! Here's an overview of the Indian solar industry during 2007-08, Naidu added that India produced: 110 MW of solar cells and 140 MW of modules. Solar PV industry turnover was over $1.0 billion. 90% of the manufacturing capacity is currently exported. The current grid connected capacity is less than 2 MW.The government of India has announced several incentives for manufacturing: Manufacturing: 20-25 percent of incentive for solar PV. Incentives for grid connected applications, such as: Generation-based incentives (GBI): 30 cents per unit. Limited up to 50 MW from the government of India. State governments are independently announcing their incentive programs.Incentives are also available for off-grid applications such as home lighting systems, street lighting systems and rooftop systems. Next, there is an agenda to develop 60 cities as Solar Cities, aimed at reducing the energy consumption by 10 percent through energy lighting conservation and renewable energy. Also, the National Solar Mission aims at achieving a target of 20 GW of solar power by the year 2020. PradeepNov. 3, 2009