📍 Alwar, Rajasthan | Completed August 2023
Rajasthan's textile industry runs on two things: water and electricity. Mr. Sandeep Mittal's mill in Alwar Industrial Area operates 240 power looms, six dyeing vats, two calendering machines, and continuous humidity-controlled storage — all running 16–18 hours per day, six days a week. Monthly electricity bills averaged ₹12 lakh, making energy the single largest input cost after raw material.
The mill spans four interconnected shed structures covering approximately 5,800 m² of rooftop. Two of the sheds had asbestos cement sheets (ACCs) installed in the 1980s, which required careful evaluation before any additional load could be placed on the purlin supports. A third shed was a more recent MS structure with Galvalume roofing. The fourth was an open-sided storage shed with a partial polycarbonate skylight roof that was excluded from the solar scope.
Mr. Mittal had received proposals from three other vendors before approaching FGPS Solar. All three had recommended simply replacing the ACCs with new sheets and then mounting panels — a ₹28 lakh additional expenditure he was reluctant to incur. He asked FGPS whether there was a smarter approach.
Our structural engineers carried out a comprehensive purlin-by-purlin load assessment across all three eligible sheds, using ultrasonic thickness testing to determine actual residual strength of the existing ACC sheets. The assessment found that by repositioning brackets to load directly onto purlins rather than sheets, and using our proprietary lightweight aluminium clamp system (total additional dead load under 9 kg/m²), the existing structure could safely support the panels without any sheet replacement.
This single engineering decision saved Mr. Mittal ₹26 lakh in civil costs and moved the project from marginal to highly attractive. We deployed 1,800 panels across three shed rooftops in six installation phases of two weeks each — one phase per roof section — ensuring no production shutdown at any point during the 12-week installation programme.
The 750 kW system was connected via six 125 kW Sungrow string inverters feeding a dedicated solar panel on the HT metering panel. DISCOM approval under Rajasthan's Industrial Net Metering policy was obtained pre-installation, ensuring grid export credits were active from day one.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Panel Type | Vikram Solar Somera 415 Wp Mono PERC Half-Cut |
| Panel Count | 1,800 panels across 3 shed rooftops |
| Inverter | Sungrow SG125HX — 6 units (125 kW each), multi-MPPT string inverters |
| Mounting System | Aluminium clamp on purlin — direct purlin fix, sheet load-free |
| Orientation | Shed 1 & 2: South-facing, 12°; Shed 3: East-West 5° flat |
| Roof Area Used | 5,220 m² across three industrial sheds |
| Annual Generation | 11,25,000 kWh (CUF ~17.1%) |
| HT Connection | Rajasthan DISCOMS industrial net metering; 750 kW HT connection |
| Monitoring | Sungrow iSolarCloud with string-level fault detection and PR tracking |
| AMC | 5-year O&M: quarterly panel cleaning, bi-annual IR thermography scan |
12-month average including demand charges, fixed charges, and wheeling fees under the Rajasthan industrial tariff schedule.
The 750 kW system generates approximately 3,080 units on a peak summer day — enough to power all 240 power looms plus the dyeing and calendering operations simultaneously during daylight hours. The mill's production shift manager reported that in summer months, the grid import meter barely moves between 9 am and 4 pm, with virtually all production load served by solar.
The ₹1.01 crore annual saving breaks down as approximately ₹84 lakh in direct energy cost reduction plus ₹17 lakh in avoided demand charges. The project cost of ₹3.03 crore (net of subsidy) gives a 3.0-year payback — the fastest of any FGPS Solar industrial project of this size, achieved by the avoided civil costs on ACC sheet replacement.
The environmental impact is equally significant: at 810 tonnes of CO₂ offset per year, the mill's Scope 2 emissions have been reduced by 68% — a material improvement for Mr. Mittal's export-oriented business, where European buyers increasingly require verified carbon footprint data as part of their supply chain audits.
Three vendors told me I had to replace my old roofing sheets before installing solar — that was an extra ₹26 lakh I hadn't budgeted for. FGPS Solar was the only company that actually did a proper structural study and found a way to mount the panels directly on the purlins without touching the sheets. They saved me ₹26 lakh before even starting. The system has been running for over a year now — my bills have dropped from ₹12 lakh to ₹3.6 lakh. This is the best decision I've made for this business in a decade.
We specialise in complex industrial installations — old roofs, multiple sheds, constrained load limits. Tell us your situation and we'll find a solution.
Get a Free Industrial Assessment →