Khas Mulakat: Kunwer Sachdev on How Solar Power Works – News18

News18’s Khas Mulakat with Kunwer Sachdev — the Inverter Man of India explains, in plain language, how solar power actually works, and where it makes the most sense: from village mini-grids to metro-rail projects.

News18’s Khas Mulakat interview with Kunwer Sachdev — founder and former MD/CEO of Su-Kam Power Systems, widely known as the Inverter Man of India — is set up as a viewer-first explainer. In plain, unhurried language, Sachdev walks through how solar power actually works, and where in the real Indian economy it makes the most sense to deploy it.

Solar 101, without the jargon

A solar panel, Sachdev tells News18, behaves like a DC source — essentially a battery being fed by sunlight. It generates electricity whenever daylight (not just direct sun) falls on it, which is why cloudy days still produce power. That DC can be used directly by DC-compatible appliances, or converted to AC for regular household use.

The invisible switching between solar, storage and grid

Modern storage-solar systems manage all this automatically. When the sun is out and the batteries are charged, the system quietly cuts off grid power without the user noticing; if solar output drops, it switches back to the grid just as smoothly. That seamlessness, Sachdev tells News18, is the point — solar should not feel like a compromise to the household using it.

“Once a rooftop system is installed, it runs cleanly — and the user does not need to know when it is switching between solar, storage and the grid.”— Kunwer Sachdev on News18 ‘Khas Mulakat’

Where solar actually makes sense — village to metro

The last part of the interview is the practical one. Sachdev covers where solar has already proved itself — village mini-grids in off-grid areas, rooftop plants for schools and institutions, and larger deployments like metro rail — and explains why each of those has a different economic case behind it. The result is the closest thing on Indian TV to an honest primer on where to put your rupees when you invest in solar.