Wednesday, December 10, 2013: Third Wave Power, which is a solar charger maker in Singapore is expecting a strong demand for its power packages in rural India. V S Hariharan, co-founder and CEO of the firm told ET, “We expect demand for portable solar charges to reach a high of 40 million units in the next five years in rural India, including small towns.”
Hariharan shared that present demand is nominal in the range of a few thousand pieces a year. He feels that their portable solar chargers will find many takers in places away from the main electricity grid and even those that come within the network but face acute shortage of electricity supplies.
Catering to the audience, the company has devised light solar chargers that include necessities such as flash light and radio in every piece. “We can charge these solar panels anywhere in the sun and then use it to re-charge mobile phones and other light-power consuming instruments,” Hariharan told PTI.
India is an important and unique market for Third Wave. “There were constant need for recharging mobiles/cells but it was becoming more challenging in rural areas, especially those having to work away from power grids, he pointed out,” he said. These include farmers, healthcare workers, fishermens and others.
In the ET report, Hariharan backed his market estimation, pointing out that some 80,000 villages in India were without electricity. “Going forward, we plan to manufacture our portable solar systems in India, China and Thailand,” said Hariharan.
