From a technological point of view, India is an excellent place for the development of solar energy. It gets plenty of sunshine for most parts of the year, with the summer temperatures well in excess of 1000 F in most parts of the country. To the northwest, India has the Thar Desert that has been identified as a feasible spot for the development of solar power, since the area is mostly an arid land and gets plenty of sunlight.
Apart from the solar power generation potential at a large scale, there is plenty of scope for household solar harvesting. This is primarily owing to two reasons – the amount of sunshine received by homes and the presence of flat roofs almost throughout the country. Flat roofs can help tap the solar energy much more efficiently and help homes generate their own power. The per capita energy consumption of India is about 15 times less than the US, which means the household solar energy harvesting can easily power an Indian home. Rooftop solar energy generation is particularly important for a country like India where there is land scarcity and acquisition of huge lands for the development of projects can be a slow and tedious process riddled with bureaucracy.
India is also well suited to develop solar energy technology. It is home to great human resource and talented scientific minds. Indian companies like Suzlon are world leaders in wind energy technology. However, the impetus and incentive to develop solar energy were lacking all these years, because the government hadn’t taken any measures to subsidize solar energy. As a result, it became too costly to be used in mainstream energy generation. The cost of production of a unit of electricity from solar energy is 3-6 times the cost of electricity produced from conventional thermal power stations in India.
This is now changing as the government has identified solar energy as a priority. It has an ambitious plan of going from near zero installed capacity to 20,000 MW solar energy just in the next 10 years. This $19 billion National Solar Mission plan should help India catch up with other developing and developed nations in the field of solar energy.
The development of solar energy in India has deep economic and social implications. There are still tens of thousands of villages in India that are not electrified and it is difficult to extend the grid to these villages. Solar energy provides the perfect answer to these villages and a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations are actively working towards rural electrification. In the eastern state of Orissa, 3000 villages will be powered completely by solar energy by 2014.
The private sector is now taking an active role in the development of solar energy in India and a number of foreign companies are entering this league, with the promise of huge advances in the next few years and availability of cheap and qualified technical professionals. Recently, Blackstone invested $300 million in Moser Baer India. This is only a start and a number of established companies are expected to join this growing market of solar energy. Already in terms of solar energy intensity, India is one of the top countries in the world today, acquiring this distinction within a very short period of time.
Owing to its location, India has a great potential for solar energy. Now the geographic advantage is coupled with a shift in policy that makes India especially well suited to lead the region in solar energy development. The government has committed about $20 billion in the next ten years for solar development in India and has mandated the use of solar energy in all government run buildings and hospitals.
Photo: Wayne National Forest
18 comments
India is blessed with abundant amount of sun and wind power. also they have tons of usable trash which can be converted to energy.Since the Indian government is committed to investing Billions of dollars into alternative energy, I suspect the private sector will compete to get into this game.Almost all the major solar PV and thermal companies have invested heavily in the Indian sub continent.
Now if someone can find a way to put and end the the corruption at the government level, I am sure India will the leading alternative energy producer in the world.
There is corruption in every country… everybody knows it and so no examples are needed…..don’t paint the picture of India being the only corrupt country in the world…this is WRONG!! yes there is of corruption.. but its getting difficult these days to give/take bribes here.
yes, I agree with Debasish’s view not to blame India for corruption . yes, India has not geared up in solar energy even though having potential. This may be due to clear cut policy of Govt. regarding incentives given to developers as well as manufacturer.
Lets not forget the corruption is not the prime issue here, though certainly a handicap. India tried to invest more heavily in wind energy because solar energy was still considered too costly for the country. Wind was more feasible and India was a major player in wind (and still is). This was almost a decade ago. Technology has certainly changed after that, and today India is ready to invest in solar energy on a large scale. The economic and geopolitical scenarios make this a wise choice.
Why talk of corruption in the Govt only. There is enough in private sector too. Cases have been reported when Wind generator was billed on 30 March and erection completion certificate was issued by authorities on 31 March of same year!! Just to take depreciation benefit, the company concerned got this certificate issued. Subsidies and/or sops given have been mis-utilised too, like a biogas machine being sold to large no. of people or PV modules for water pumping being used for power generation, etc. etc.,
I think a lot of people don’t know the facts about solar energy. I think the fact alone that you can use solar power for everything from electricity to cooking food is important to know. It can change lives.
You are right. I know of a village in India that uses solar energy purely for cooking purposes. It is like a communal kitchen where about 100 families gather to cook food. Solar is certainly versatile and can be used in many different forms.
Siddharth, the village which probably you are talking of, is in Andhra Pradesh. This village was labelled as a smokeless village since cooking was done entirely by solar cooker. Unfortunately same is not true anymore, either the cookers are not doing good or people do not want to come out and do cooking. Very unfortunate.
Three years back I attended a workshop on manufacturing of solar cookers. Results were extremely well. We had vegetable pulao cooked in approx. 50 mins. in a conventional cooker available in India, in bright sunshine.
Solar cookers do seem like a nice option. So do water heaters. You can use solar energy even without the conversions, which seems to make it cheaper and also more efficient. 50 mins for a vegetable pulao seems impressive, but I would suspect the time needs to be shortened for widescale use. Technology needs to reach people in the way they want to consume, I guess, for it to really succeed.
Solar power plants will become viable as on today only with the subsidies provided by the government. Solar power can become viable when the cost of solar panels/cells become cheaper so that the cost of establishing a solar power plant is on par with the cost of other power projects, say, thermal power project. Governments and technologists should think of finding ways to reduce the cost of establishing solar power plants so that they become viable without governmental support. Hope, like cell phones, cost and usage of solar power will come down drastically so that it becomes economically viable.
You are absolutely right. Subsidies can only work for the short term and not forever. In the end, we need technology to be affordable and competitive. However, the good thing is, the trend has been towards a steady decreasing of costs. For the price decline, it always helps to have the economies of scale, which justifies the government subsidies in the first place. There are newer innovations in tapping solar energy and hopefully they will be more competitive than the hydrocarbons.
Siddharth, 50 mins. cooking time is excellent. One does’nt need to remain near the cooker, all the time. Just leave in the sun and cooker whisle will let you know. Over cooking also cannot take place because during this time, auto de-focussing takes place due to earth’s rotation. Larger cooking vessels will require larger solar cooker, no training needed to operate, can be locally assembled, does not require any specific maintenance apart from regular cleaning, as there is no moving parts & best of all, no service after sales. If a coconut ( or apple? ) falls on the cooker, then it will require replacement!!!
Nuevos mercados: India y el futuro de las instalaciones solares sobre tejados y en zonas rurales http://bit.ly/bAaK4J
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I agree there prevails a positive climate w.r.t solar thermal and spv in India, but it will be not of any use, unless the cost / MW comes down. Market decides whether or not a new technology to survive.
Solar Energy is gathering a lot of momentum in the energy market these days. more and more companies are providing Solar Energy Solutions even in developing countries like India. There is startup called Headway Solar, India that offers a wide range of Solar products in India.
Renewable Energy contributes about 10% of total power generated sources, with Tamil Nadu contributing 30% of it, mainly through wind power. India plans to invest $19 billion in 20,000 MW of solar power generation by 2020, pretty lofty aspiration considering that India’s current grid-connected solar capacity is no more than 15MW.
Well, you are right, renewable energy in India isn’t dominant, but it is still good compared to a lot of other countries. There is a huge solar plan underway, and though it does seem very lofty as you pointed out, I remain optimistic simply because there are concrete steps being taken.
Consider, for example, the state of Gujarat that is already doing a lot for solar energy in the Rann of Kutch. See this article, for example – http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/sunday-et/special-feature/Gujarat-takes-the-lead-among-states-in-solar-power/articleshow/6855821.cms
India is blessed with abundant amount of sun and wind power. also they have tons of usable trash which can be converted to energy.Since the Indian government is committed to investing Billions of dollars into alternative energy, I suspect the private sector will compete to get into this game.Almost all the major solar PV and thermal companies have invested heavily in the Indian sub continent.
Now if someone can find a way to put and end the the corruption at the government level, I am sure India will the leading alternative energy producer in the world.
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