BSL would also be listed eventually, Poddar claimed.

The group acquired Shell Solar Ltd. from Shell Petroleum in October last year for an undisclosed sum.

Polysilicon, the raw material for manufacturing solar panels, was a backward integration step for the company.

While the equity structure of the SPV is yet to be finalised, Srei Infrastructure Finance would act as equity partner together with Centrotherm Photovoltaics AG of Germany, US based private equity firm Perseus LLC, and Green Power Corporation (GPC), the renewable energy arm of the state government. GPC was likely to have 5 per cent stake in the SPV. "Given the government target of 5000MW of installed solar power capacity by 2012, we expect demand growth of more than 500MW per year", Poddar claimed.

BSL said exporting solar panels or modules was unlikely as domestic demand could surge.

Currently, only 60-70MW of solar modules were manufactured in India, with market size pegged at Rs2000-2500 crore.

Incentives announced in the semiconductor policy in January 2008 provided for special provisions for solar power.

Many large solar plants would come up in the country in the next five years, Poddar said. Rajasthan alone had generating potential of 250MW of solar power, and applications for around 100MW solar plants were lying with the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Authority(WBREDA), he claimed.

The state government was keen to see the project getting implemented soon as it had huge potential for spawning downstream industries in solar panel and cell manufacturing in West Bengal, state industries minister Nirupam Sen said.