South Asian Leaders Seeking Strategic Partnerships With Solamon; Discussions Underway for State-by-State Solar Farm Solutions

TORONTO, ON February 07, 2013 (Press-News.org) Last July India suffered the world's biggest-ever power outage as transmission networks serving 680 million inhabitants collapsed. As a consequence, the nation's aging infrastructure was put on stark display and visionaries in governments across the country began to re-double efforts and reach out to renewable energy companies capable of supplying utility-scale solutions directly.

"Since landing in Sri Lanka last March," says Solamon Energy CEO Graeme Boyce, "together with SVPs Thijs Boonen and Romy Thomas, we've been quite busy exploring the tremendous opportunities across India and possible partnerships there."

The country's 2-day grid failure affected 18 states and two union territories in north and eastern India. Without electricity, trains came to a grinding halt, thousands of local hospitals and factories were forced to operate on generators, and overall caused losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In India, access to electricity is far from universal, and because Indians are accustomed to regular power outages, many neighborhoods, businesses and farmers see backup diesel-run generators as an absolute necessity.

"They are now seeking alternative renewable energy solutions from us," says Boyce, "and we are happy to oblige by offering The Apollo Acre , which is a modular solar farm concept and adapts very well across the vast open fields of South Asia."

According to subsequent media broadcasts, for a nation that sees itself as an emerging global power, the event was a huge embarrassment for Indians. It put on vivid display the country's weak link: its infrastructure. Further, the event tarnished the perception of India among foreign companies who have long viewed the country's outdated roads, ports and power networks as major drawbacks to operating businesses competitively over the long-term.

The national government in India is still fighting to dispel the perception that it is mismanaging the country's economy and failing to follow through on promises to carry out big-ticket reforms, including promises to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure projects by 2017.

Industry critics were equally tough on the government after the back-to-back days of outages. "The developments of yesterday and today have created a huge dent in the country's reputation that is most unfortunate," said Chandrajit Banerjee, the head of the Confederation of Indian Industry, a leading trade group, in a statement.

Solamon Energy typically offers a ground-mounted solar array of integrated photovoltaic cells over a package of land called the Apollo Acre . The company now also develops custom solutions with local partners to provide roof-mounted and parking lot systems that are easily augmented by micro wind turbine technology and other innovative features to supply renewable energy.

About Solamon: Solamon Energy Corp. sells integrated arrays of ground-mounted and rooftop photovoltaic cells. These solar power plants are connected by cable to varied transmission equipment, including converters, inverters and batteries, utilizing 5 acres of land per unit; each unit is called an Apollo Acre . Additionally, it is expected the company's business activities will spin-off many jobs locally, given engineering requirements, construction, unit commissioning and subsequent maintenance.