Sujoy Ghosh, VP and Country Managing Director, First Solar
There are a few elements what we believe, should be a factory of the future, not just for our industry, but generically across manufacturing.
Carbon neutral
Firstly, a factory of future should be carbon neutral. It should be run 100 per cent on renewable energy, it should consume green hydrogen in case there is any kind of combustion going on, it should have green buildings. The factory of the future, basically, to qualify for that epithet should be carbon neutral. That’s the first goal which we have and the vision towards which we are working.
Gender neutral
The second aspect is that the factories should be designed to be gender neutral. Especially the hardcore manufacturing, shop floor environments. Today, as we think about running three shift operations and looking at maximising production, gender diversity is important in the workforce. It is necessary to think how to design workplaces to be neutral for gender. That’s the second thing, which we believe should be a core element of the factory of the future.
Zero waste
The third thing is, factories should be zero waste: whatever they make, should be recyclable, reusable; whatever they discharge should be minimum and possibly zero.
Digital first
And lastly, of course, it should be digital with latest technologies like Internet of Things, high degree of automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning… All these technologies and platforms, which are evolving, need to find their way into the factory of the future, so that you can potentially operate or maintain the factory from remote. If there is a problem in a machine in the middle of the night, the factory should be able to diagnose and troubleshoot it without anyone at the floor. It could be done from remote and I think we’re already almost there. As you think about the factory of the future, digitalisation is a very important aspect of that element.
Rs 5200 crore Investment
First Solar is building vertically integrated solar module production unit in Pillaipakkam, near Chennai at an investment of about Rs 5200 crore providing direct employment to 1200 people. This would directly contribute to the country’s vision of having 40 per cent of energy generation capacity from renewables. Today, as the world transits from oil and fossil based economy into renewables, solar has become the new oil. Today, China controls about 90 per cent of the manufacturing value chain globally for high volume solar manufacturing and First Solar is the balance 10 per cent.
Indian government looked at and recognised solar as a strategic resource and created a whole basket of incentives for local manufacturing to become self reliant in this area. This was a perfect opportunity for us to look at expanding our manufacturing.
India is one of the largest growing markets for renewable energy, solar in particular. Tamil Nadu is the biggest state in terms of renewable energy generation in the country and this led us to look at the state for investment.
