Annual insolation

With about 300 clear sunny days in a year, India's theoretical solar power reception, just on its land area, is about 5 EWh/year (i.e. = 5000 trillion kWh/yr ~ 600 TW).^{[1] [2]} The daily average solar energy incident over India varies from 4 to 7 kW h/m2 with the sunshine hours ranging between 2300 and 3200 per year, depending upon location.^[1] This is far more than current total energy consumption - even assuming 10% conversion efficiency for PV modules, it will still be thousand times greater than the likely electricity demand for India by the year 2015. ^[1] Solar power describes a number of methods of harnessing energy from the light of the sun. ... Exa (symbol E) is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 1018 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000. ... The watt-hour (symbol W·h) is a unit of energy. ... Tera (symbol: T) is a prefix in the SI system of units denoting 1012, or 1 000 000 000 000. ...

Present Status

Installed capacity

The amount of solar energy produced in India is merely 0.2 percent compared to other energy resources.^[3] The Grid-interactive solar power as on Jun,2007 was merely 2.12 MW.^[4] Government-funded solar energy in India only accounted for approximately 6.4 megawatt-years of power as of 2005.^[3]

Still unaffordable

Solar power is currently prohibitive due to high initial costs of deployment. For spawning a thriving solar market, the technology needs to be competitively cheaper - i.e. attaining cost parity with fossil or nuclear energy. India is heavily dependent on coal and foreign oil - a phenomenon likely to continue until non-fossil / renewable energy technology become economically viable in the country. ^{[5] [6]} The cost of production ranges from Rs 15 to Rs 30 per unit compared to around Rs 2 to Rs 6 per unit for conventional thermal energy.

Government policy

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy ^[7] have initiated schemes and incentives like subsidy, soft loan, 80 percent accelerated depreciation, confessional duty on import of raw materials and certain products, excise duty exemption on certain devices/systems etc to boost the production and use of solar energy systems. The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) ^[8] provides revolving fund to financing and leasing companies offering affordable credit for the purchase of PV systems. An Expert Committee constituted by the Planning Commission has prepared an Integrated Energy Policy which envisions a 10 million square meter solar collector area capable of conserving electricity equivalent to that generated from a 500 MW power plant to be set up by 2022.^[3] The state of West Bengal has intitiated to make the use of solar power mandatory in new multi-storeyed buildings.^[9]

Solar Funds and Investments

With high deployment price as the main hurdle before a solar market, various organisations have developed innovative funding schemes to catalyse solar's attractiveness. ^{[10] [11]} One of the most successful example is the solar loan programme in India, sponsored by UNEP ^[10] in partnership with two of India's major banking groups - Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank, and their sponsored Grameen Banks. It was a four-year $7.6 million effort, launched in April 2003 to help accelerate the market for financing solar home systems in southern India. Foreign Direct Investment up to 100 percent is permitted in non-conventional energy sector through the automatic route. The Multilateral Development Banks like World Bank and Asian Development Bank are also helping India but, the funding from MDBs on solar energy enhancement is negligible compare to other clean energy support in India.^[3] Investment by private companies is a trend that has just started. ^[12] 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. ...

PV manufacture in India

Current PV manufacturing in India includes:

• BP-Tata joint venture ^[13]
• Moser-Baer signed up for a thin film Si plant provided by Applied Materials ^[14]

Applications

Rural electrification

Electrification is one of the main infrastructure requirements for the overall rural development. India's grid system is considerably under-developed, with major sections of it's populace still surviving off-grid. As on 2004 there are about 80,000 unelectrified villages in the country. Of these villages, 18,000 could not be electrified through extension of the conventional grid. A target for electrifying 5000 such villages was fixed for the Tenth National Five Year Plan (2002-2007). As on 2004, more than 2700 villages and hamlets had been electrified mainly using SPV systems.^[1] Developments on cheap solar technology is considered as a potential alternative that allows an electricity infrastructure comprising of a network of local-grid clusters with distributed electricity generation.^[3] That could allow bypassing, or at least relieving the need of installing expensive, and lossy, long-distance centralised power delivery systems and yet bring cheap electricity to the masses.

Agricultural support

Water pumping

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

Harvest processing

Solar driers are used to dry harvests before storage. ^[15]

Cooling

Another e.g. is the cost of energy expended on temperature control - a factor squarely influencing regional energy intensity. With cooling load demands being roughly in phase with the sun's intensity, cooling from intense solar radiation could be an attractive energy-economic option in the subcontinent. ^{[16] [17] [18]} Energy intensity is a measure of the energy efficiency of a nations economy. ... Heat flow along perfectly insulated wire Conduction is the transfer of heat or electric current from one substance to another by direct contact. ...

Challenges and Constraints

Land scarcity

Per capita land availabiity is a scarce resource in India. Dedication of land area for exclusive installation of solar cells might have to compete with other necessities that require land. The amount of land required for utility-scale solar power plants - currently approximately 1 sq 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 higly distributed, individual rooftop power generation systems, all connected via a local grid. ^[3] However, erecting such an infrastructure - which doesn't 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. ^[3] That might be possible in the future, since PV is projected to continue its current cost reductions for the next decades and be able to compete with fossil fuel.

Slow progress

While the world has progressed substantially in production of basic silicon mono-crystalline photovoltaic cells, India has fallen short to achieve the worldwide momentum. India has now on the 7th place worldwide in Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Cell production and 9th place in Solar Thermal Systems with nations like Japan, Europe, China, and the US currently ranked far ahead. Globally, solar is the fastest growing source of energy with an annual average growth of 35%, as seen during the past few years.^[19]

Other developments

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).^[20]

Latent potential

Major think-tanks have proposed blueprints for India's transition to renewable energy, one that reins on it’s carbon emissions without compromising on it's economic growth.^{[21] [22]} It envisions scenarios where renewable resources like solar become the backbone of India’s economy by 2050. Being a densely populated region ^[23] in the sunny tropical belt, India's very long-term solar potential has been observed to be unparalleled in the world, since the subcontinent has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation ^[24] and a big potential consumer base density.^{[1] [25] [26] [27] [28]} Population density by country, 2006 List of countries and dependencies by population density in inhabitants/km². The list includes sovereign states and self-governing dependent territories that are recognized by the United Nations. ... The tropics are the geographic region of the Earth centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the two tropics: the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere. ... Not to be confused with insulation. ... Consumers refers to individuals or households that purchase and use goods and services generated within the economy. ...

See also

Energy Portal

India Portal

• List of India energy articles
• Indian Solar Loan Programme
• Energy policy of India
• Energy security
• Solar power in South Asia

Image File history File links Portal. ... Image File history File links Portal. ... List of India energy articles This is a list of articles on energy issues in India. ... 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. ... The energy policy of India is characterized by tradeoffs between four major drivers: Rapidly growing economy, with a need for dependable and reliable supply of electricity, gas, and petroleum products; Increasing household incomes, with a need for affordable and adequate supply of electricity, and clean cooking fuels; Limited domestic reserves... Energy security, or security of supply, is a key component of energy policy in many countries. ... South Asia has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation [1] and a potentially big consumer base density. ...

References