Topic: Solar Power in India

India is densely populated and has high solar insolation, an ideal combination for using solar power in India. India is already a leader in wind power generation. In the solar energy sector, some large projects have been proposed, and a 35,000 km area of the Thar Desert has been set aside for solar power projects, sufficient to generate 700 GW to 2,100 GW. In July 2009, India unveiled a US$19 billion plan to produce 20 GW of solar power by 2020. Under the plan, the use of solar-powered equipment and applications would be made compulsory in all government buildings, as well as hospitals and hotels. On November 18, 2009, it was reported that India was ready to launch its National Solar Mission under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, with plans to generate 1,000 MW of power by 2013.

According to a 2011 report by GTM Research and Bridge, India is facing a perfect storm of factors that will drive solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption at a “furious pace over the next five years and beyond”. The falling prices of PV panels, mostly from China but also from the U.S., has coincided with the growing cost of grid power in India. Government support and ample solar resources have also helped to increase solar adoption, but perhaps the biggest factor has been need. India, “as a growing economy with a surging middle class, is now facing a severe electricity deficit that often runs between 10 and 13 percent of daily need.

Solar Resource Map of India

With about 300 clear, sunny days in a year, India’s theoretical solar power reception, on only its land area, is about 5 Petawatt-hours per year (PWh/yr) (i.e. 5 trillion kWh/yr or about 600 TW). The daily average solar energy incident over India varies from 4 to 7 kWh/m with about 1500–2000 sunshine hours per year (depending upon location), which is far more than current total energy consumption. For example, assuming the efficiency of PV modules were as low as 10%, this would still be a thousand times greater than the domestic electricity demand projected for 2015.

Installed Capacity

The amount of solar energy produced in India is less than 1% of the total energy demand. The grid-interactive solar power as of December 2010 was merely 10 MW. Govern-ment funded olar energy in India only accounted for approximately 6.4 MW-yr of power as of 2005. However, as of October 2009, India is currently ranked number one along with the United States in terms of solar energy production per watt installed.

Solar Engineering Training

The Australian government has awarded UNSW A$5.2 million to train next-generation solar energy engineers from Asia-Pacific nations, specifically India and China, as part of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). Certain programmes are designed to target for rural solar usage development.

Rural Electrification

Lack of electricity infrastructure is one of the main hurdles in the development of rural India. India’s grid system is considerably under-developed, with major sections of its populace still surviving off-grid. As of 2004 there are about 80,000 unelectrified villages in the country. Of these villages, 18,000 could not be electrified through extension of the conven-tional grid. A target for electrifying 5,000 such villages was set for the Tenth National Five Year Plan (2002–2007). As of 2004, more than 2,700 villages and hamlets had been electrified, mainly using solar photovoltaic systems. Developments in cheap solar techno-logy are considered as a potential alternative that allows an electricity infrastru-cture consisting of a network of local-grid clusters with distributed electricity generation. It could allow bypassing (or at least relieving) the need to install expensive, lossy, long-distance, centra-lised power delivery systems and yet bring cheap electricity to the masses. Projects currently planned include 3000 villages of Orissa, which will be lighted with solar power by 2014.

Agricultural Support

Solar PV water pumping systems are used for irrigation and drinking water. The majority of the pumps are fitted with a 200–3,000 watt motor that are powered with 1,800 Wp PV array which can deliver about 140,000 liters of water per day from a total head of 10 meters. By 30 September, 2006, a total of 7,068 solar PV water pumping systems had been installed.

Solar Water Heaters

Bangalore has the largest deployment of rooftop solar water heaters in India. These heaters will generate an energy equivalent of 200 MW every day. Bangalore is also the first city in the country to put in place an incentive mechanism by providing a rebate on monthly electricity bills for residents using roof-top thermal systems. These systems are now mandatory for all new structures. Pune, another city in the western part of India, has also recently made installation of solar water heaters in new buildings mandatory.

Challenges and Opportunities

Land is a scarce resource in India and per capita land availability is low. Dedication of land area for exclusive installation of solar arrays might have to compete with other necessities that require land. The amount of land required for utility-scale solar power plants—currently approximately 1 km for every 20–60 megawatts (MW) generated—could pose a strain on India’s available land resource. The architecture more suitable for most of India would be a highly-distributed set of individual rooftop power generation systems, all connected via a local grid. However, erecting such an infrastructure, which does not enjoy the economies of scale possible in mass, utility-scale, solar panel deployment, needs the market price of solar technology deployment to substantially decline, so that it attracts the individual and average family size household consumer. That might be possible in the future, because PV is projected to continue its current cost reductions for the next decades and be able to compete with fossil fuel.

Some noted think-tanks recommend that India should adopt a policy of developing solar power as a dominant component of the renewable energy mix, since being a densely populated region in the sunny tropical belt, the subcontinent has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and therefore a big potential consumer base density. In one of the analyzed scenarios, India can make renewable resources such as solar the backbone of its economy by 2050, reining in its long-term carbon emissions without compromising its economic growth potential.

According to a 2011 report by GTM Research and Bridge, India is facing a perfect storm of factors that will drive solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption at a “furious pace over the next five years and beyond”. The falling prices of PV panels, mostly from China but also from the U.S., has coincided with the growing cost of grid power in India. Government support and ample solar resources have also helped to increase solar adoption, but perhaps the biggest factor has been need. India, “as a growing economy with a surging middle class, is now facing a severe electricity deficit that often runs between 10 and 13 percent of daily need”.

Government Support

The government of India is promoting the use of solar energy through various strategies. In the latest budget for 2010/11, the government has announced an allocation of 10 billion (US$190 million)towards the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and the establishment of a clean energy fund. It is an increase of 3.8 billion (US$72.2 million) from the previous budget. This new budget has also encouraged private solar companies by reducing customs duty on solar panels by 5% and exempting excise duty on solar photovoltaic panels. This is expected to reduce the cost of a roof-top solar panel installation by 15–20%. The budget also proposed a coal tax of US$1 per metric ton on domestic and imported coal used for power generation. Additionally, the govern-ment has initiated a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) scheme, which is designed to drive investment in low-carbon energy projects.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)provides 70 percent subsidy on the installation cost of a solar photovoltaic power plant in North-East states and 30 percentage subsidy on other regions. The detailed outlay of the National Solar Mission highlights various targets set by the government to increase solar energy in the country’s energy portfolio.

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