Solar Power in India 2011

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 km² 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.

 If fully implemented, solar power would be equivalent to one-eighth of India's current installed power base, helping the world's fourth-largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions limit its heavy reliance on dirty coal and assuaging the nagging power deficit that has crimped its growth.

 The "National Solar Mission", yet to be formally adopted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special panel on climate, envisages the creation of a statutory solar authority that would make it mandatory for states to buy some solar power, according to a draft of the plan, which provided detailed proposals for the first time, obtained by Reuters,

 India's climate plan released last year identified harnessing renewable energy, such as solar power, and energy efficiency as central to its fight against global warming. At the moment only about 8 percent of India's total power mix is from renewable  although it is a leading provider of wind power technology.

 Experts say the voluntary domestic action will add to India's bargaining power in international negotiations, although India's refusal to commit to any binding emission targets has angered many rich countries demanding greater commitment. "Such unilateral action will give India the moral high-ground because the rich countries have not committed to anything (in terms of finance and technology)," said Siddharth Pathak, Greenpeace India's chief climate campaigner.

 The Indian Solar Loan Programme, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme has won the prestigious Energy Globe World award for Sustainability for helping to establish a consumer financing program for solar home power systems. Over the span of three years more than 16,000 solar home systems have been financed through 2,000 bank branches, particularly in rural areas of South India where the electricity grid does not yet extend.

Considering India as a large country these numbers are miniscule. The present government has taken some steps to utilize the solar energy. A solar mission named “Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission” was launched in January 2010, which promises to generate 1,000MW by 2013 and by 2022 generate 20GW, to deploy 20 million solar lighting systems and to achieve 20 million sq. meters solar thermal collector area. However a point to note is that India is currently ranked number one with United States in terms of total solar power generation capacity. Experts are recommending that India should adopt a policy to create solar energy as a backbone of its economy by 2050.

Corporate houses like INDOSOLAR have started producing world-class solar panels with high efficiencies ranging up to 17.2%. Indosolar is currently producing 160MWp and plans to produce 260MWp by 2011. Non-Profit organizations like TERI (The Energy and Resource Institute) have also come up with projects like LABL (lighting a billion lives) Campaign to enhance access to clean energy and ease in creation of rural green jobs in association with The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India.

While the merits of installing solar equipment are large it suffers from a few drawbacks. The efficiency of solar panels is still 15% of the sunlight energy received. The cost of production ranges from Rs. 8 to Rs. 30 per unit compared to Rs. 5 to Rs. 8 per unit of conventional thermal energy. We can store solar energy only using large batteries, which can be an environmental risk. There has been a slow progress over the years and India has fallen short of achieving the desired momentum. India is now 7th worldwide in Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Cell production and 9th in Solar Thermal Systems production with nations like Japan, China, and the US currently ranked ahead of it.

 The draft policy document estimated that India could cut about 42 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions with its new solar plan, which aims to provide access to solar-powered lighting for 3 million households by 2012.

 The plan is to make the use of solar-powered equipment and applications mandatory for hospitals, hotels and government buildings, and encourage use of solar lighting systems in villages and small towns with micro financing.

The plan also outlines a system of paying households for any surplus power from solar panels fed back into the grid.

 India is a country of over a billion people. As of 31^st August 2010 there were 89808 villages or 15.1 % of the total which were still un-electrified . Over 40% of the country’s population currently does not have energy access .India as a country still depends heavily on imports of oil and natural gas when it comes to meeting the daily energy needs. Using these sources of energy is an economic burden to the government and at the same time they heavily contribute to the pollution. To realize the dream of becoming a superpower by 2020 India needs to be self-sufficient in its energy needs. Even though non-renewable sources of energy such as oil and gas are cheaper to work with than renewable sources, Renewable sources have an advantage in terms of the pollution they create, hence if we can work towards bringing down the cost of working with these energy sources, we can kill two birds with a stone. Since India lies at the tropic of cancer we get abundant sunshine to make full use of solar energy. Solar energy has become an attractive source of renewable energy because of reduction in the cost of manufacturing of solar panel these days.With abut 300 clear sunny days in a year, India’s theoretical solar power reception, just on its land area is about 5000 trillion kWh/year ^. The daily average solar energy incident over India varies from 4 to 7 kWh/m² with about 2,300–3,200 sunshine hours per year, depending upon location. This is far more than current total energy consumption. For example, even assuming 10% conversion efficiency for PV modules, it will still be thousand times greater than the likely electricity demand in India by the year 2015.

As of August 2010 India fulfills around 10.9% of the total requirement with renewable sources of energy while solar accounts for a total of 1% of the renewable energy generation . Currently we generate 18MW (get the latest from http://www.mnre.gov.in/) from Solar Sources but it is expected that 150-200 MW of solar power will be installed in the country by December 2011 .These non-conventional sources of energy have the capability of fulfilling the requirement without harming the environment. As of September 2010 the status of Decentralized Energy Systems is as follows .

Many observers regard India's long-neglected power sector as the greatest infrastructure investment opportunity in a country where nearly 56% of the 1.1-billion plus population do not have access to electricity. In spite of its pledge to clean technology, coal remains the backbone of India's power sector--accounting for about 60% of generation--with the government planning to add 78.7GW of power generation during the five years ending March 2012. Of this, 15.1GW has been commissioned. In comparison, China's power generation capacity rose to 792.5GW in 2008, more than five times India's capacity.

1	Family Type Biogas Plants	4.27 million
2	SPV Home Lighting System	6,19,428
3	Solar Lantern	8,13,380
4	SPV Street Lighting System	1,21,227
5	SPV Pumps	7,495
6	Solar Water Heating	Collector Area 3.77 mln. sq.m

To summarize we can see that some steps have been taken to tap the potential of solar energy but still more effort needs to be put in. We need more private investments so that the initial costs of the panels come down. We need the government to fund research projects to develop solar panel with high-efficiency. Also common man needs to be made aware about the merits so that he is convinced to use solar energy in his day-to-day life.