Chinese Solar Mission

Chinese strategy in solar PV focussed on utilisation, manufacture and research with a synergistic policy. Interesting from Indian perspective as tend to see as all three components as mutually exclusive. Excerpts from UNU-MERIT working paper'  Diverse and uneven pathways towards transition to low carbon development: The case of diffusion of solar PV technology in China, Michiko Iizuka, (wp2014-002).

China (as of 2012) has the largest capacity for renewable power generation in the world, followed by the USA and Germany, and is one of the five largest countries in the world in terms of capacity for producing the following types of renewable energy: bio‐power (3rd), hydropower (1st), solar PV (4th), wind power (1st), solar water collection (1st), geothermal (2nd) in 2012 (REN21, 2013). 

As for manufacturing capacity, several Chinese firms, such as Goldwind, Sinovel and Migyang for wind energy and Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar – to name a few – for solar PV, are considered the dominant players in the global export market for both wind turbine and solar PV respectively. The growing presence of China in terms of capacity to generate and manufacture renewable energy is accompanied by a growing capacity to innovate as the result of conscious efforts made by both private and public sectors.

The growing manufacturing capacity demonstrated by China’s export performance was accompanied by increasing technological efforts. Both government and firms attempted to close the technological gap with OECD countries. The results of these efforts can be observed from the rapid increase of indigenous R&D. Between 1996 and 2008, central government R&D appropriation for renewable energy increased from RMB 21.1 billion (US$2.5 billion) to RMB104.8 billion (US$15.2 billion), while expenditure by regional governments for the same purpose increased from RMB 7.8 billion (US$940 million) to RMB 105.7 billion (US$15.4billion) (Cao and Groba, 2013). 

 Parallel to such technological efforts, Chinese firms relied on the acquisition of foreign technologies using turnkey cell and module production lines and capital goods from the late 1990s to the early 2000s (de la Tour et al., 2011). During this time, the manufacturing activities of Chinese solar PV firms were concentrated on ‘easy‐to‐enter’ but ‘low‐profit‐margin’ activities of cell and module production. Subsequently, these firms’ cumulative efforts at in‐house R&D were complemented by strategies of joint R&D with universities and research institutes, as well as setting up overseas R&D facilities with government inducements for acquiring technology. Such R&D focused on crystalline silicon, which was the dominant technology at that time. Although the strongest presence of Chinese firms is still in downstream activities, i.e. cell and module production, firms have also invested in upstream activities such as the processing of silicon feedstock.

India adopted early- to- start and fast- to -vacate policy in solar PV too, established CEL in 1974, supported research regularly with small grants to IITs and increased utilisation of PV with Solar Mission.

R and D investment by top 1400 firms

The EU report collected data (year 2009) from 1000 European firms and 1000 non-European firms. List includes 17 Indian firms with only 5 of them investing more than 100 million euro in R&D. Prithvi Information solutions top the Indian list with 228miliion euro investment in R&D followed by Tata Motors, Polaris Software, Mind Tree and BHEL. Software firms Prithvi, Polaris, Mid Tree spent 77.3%, 64.3% and 61.6% of their net sale on R&D whereas Infosys spent only 1.8% of their sales revenue on R&D.

The Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology sector strengthens its top position in the R&D ranking with a share of 18.9% of the total R&D investment by the Scoreboard  companies. It is followed by the Technology Hardware & Equipment sector with a share of 17.2% and the Automobile & Parts sector with 15.6% (down from 17.1% last year). By region, companies changed their share of R&D investment in the top 6 sectors as follows: EU companies increased their share in Chemicals, Electronic & Electrical Equipment, Software & Computer Services, Automobiles & Parts and Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology and decreased its share in Technology Hardware & Equipment; US companies decreased their share in the top 6 sectors; Japanese companies increased their share in Technology Hardware & Equipment, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, Chemicals and Automobiles & Parts and decreased their share in Software & Computer Services and Electronic & Electrical Equipment. Companies from the OC group increased their share in Electronic & Electrical Equipment, Technology Hardware & Equipment, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, Automobiles & Parts and Software & Computer Services.

`Public' funds for `Private' R&D

Providing grants / soft loans/ risk capital to `for profit' organisations by government agencies is based more on personal conviction than consensus or empirical data. Read this analysis ` What difference do IWT R&D grants make for their clients'. This study is path breaking, it moves away from out put/ out come to behavior additionality. They rightly pointed that evaluation of R&D projects with focus only on output will induce government agencies to select low risk, short term projects. More important from national perspective are the behavioural changes, the spin offs that linger on after completion of funded project. Also read my paper at SSRN on the same topic.

R&D India news on web

ASCI, Hyderabad is manging this site with news & views on Indian R&D. Access with free subscription. Visit: http://www.rndindia.info/.
Also see list of top 100 R&D spenders on R&D in India in the section on analysis.

India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC)

Techtree reports that British Telecom (BT) is leading a consortium of 22 industry- and academic- partners such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) to launch the India-UK Advanced Technology Centre (IU-ATC). IU-ATC, a virtual graduate research school, will support collaborative- PhD and Post Doctorate projects and research programs, and technology transfer between the UK and India. Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT believes that the global connectivity of this virtual consortium will ensure rapid transfer of ideas and technology with the aim of creating breakthrough next generation network (NGN) and ICT research.

President speaks at Maruti

Hon.Presidents speech at Maruti is one of the most logically structured talk I have come across. Maruti is no 2 in productivity and road map to become no 1 includes a heavy dose of investment in R&D. And Maruti is not short of cash, as the Hon.President pointed out - they had Rs1500 crore profit in 2006-7. Will they bite the bullet and be known as innovators in automobiles. It probably depends on the strategic intent of owners as exhibited by Hyundai a decade back with much smaller base of market and resources.