Why should we go for
Solar Energy?
India
gets an average of 300 sunny days and 1500-2000 sunny hours in an year. Average
incidental solar irradiation in our country is 4-7KWh/m2/Day. Theoretically;
India’s total potential for Solar Power is 600 TW (3000 times of the current
production)!
We
need only 1% of land to construct solar power plants which altogether produce
800 GW of electricity (around four times of the current total production). At
present, 3% of the total land in India is being used for Power generation of
around 200 GW. A dream Solar Power
project proposed in 35,000 Km2 in the Desert of Thar is enough to
produce 700-1200 GW of electricity (same as the total electricity output in the
entire Europe presently).
Previously
Solar Power Plants were very expensive to build up. According to a case study by the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc), the construction of a 3 MW solar plant in Kolar
District, Karnataka in 2009 has drained out 60 crore INR from the treasury. But
a 2011-built 3 MW solar power plant in Raichur, Karnataka needed only 43.5
crore INR to be completed. The analysis states that the expense of a 1 GW Solar
power plant would be INR 14,500 crore in August 2011, while in 2009, it would
have been INR 20,000 crore.
At
the end of 2011, the construction cost for a 1 GW Solar power was reduced to
10,000 crore Indian Rupees. The expense reduction process was accelerated by
the fall of the cost of essential commodities to construct solar power plants.
KPMG says that the cost of solar energy will decrease upto 7% annually while
the cost of conventional energy will increase upto 5.5% per year. These studies
prove that solar power sector is rapidly changing into a profitable investment
field. Experts say that Solar Power will reach or go beyond Grid parity of
India in 2014.
India
has announced an INR 1 lakh crore budget for the mission – “20 GW solar energy
in 2022”. If we compare the 2 GW Koodamkulam Nuclear Plant for which 14,000 crore
rupees spent with the above mentioned budget, it is very clear that the least
expense to attain 20 GW capacity in Nuclear power sector is INR 1.8 lakh crore.
That means, for constructing a nuclear power plant which produce the same
amount of electricity as of a 20 GW
solar power plant, we must spend an additional 80,000 crore rupees! Operational
and maintenance expenses will be counted separately.
Solar Energy goes internationally
Green!
Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) is an interesting program put forwarded by Asian
Development Bank (ADB) for their associated countries. The program promotes
clean energy, energy efficiency and waste utilization projects to reduce the emission
of green house gases and environmental pollution. Since the Solar projects meet
the criteria for CDM by the Kyoto Protocol, the plants will be eligible for
gaining Carbon Credits or Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). For that, the
projects should be registered under the CDM Executive Board (EB) through an
official process. Obtaining carbon credits will increase the revenue and
attracts more International investments in Solar Power Sector (As of now, the
transaction rate of a single carbon credit is 22 dollars.), and so that we can
enhance these other renewable energy sectors using the fund we obtained by the
trading of carbon credits.
Ever
since the “Go green” international eco – conservation policy became popular,
solar energy projects are attracting large scale financial investments
globally. International finance corporation (IFC) of World Bank has risen the
funding in India from INR 73 crore in 2010 to INR 335 crore in 2011. According
to Bloomberg New Energy Foundation, India has received a total global
investment of INR 22,000 crore. On addition, KPMG observes that the steady
decline in the construction cost of solar projects will make an additional
profit of up to INR 42,000 crore. All these statistical inferences are pointing
at the bright future of solar systems in India.
The
only drawback for India in this particular renewable energy sector is the lack
of research. While the western countries are far in front of solar energy
researches, there is not much research is going on in India. To go green and
economically safe, we must focus on the organic solar cell researches,
especially bio – solar cells, as the popular western countries do.
20th
century has seen a big leap in science sector which made the life so easier for
humans. But a majority of those scientific inventions were not ecologically
concerned and they altered the global eco system dramatically. Now the scenario
is clear, we know that we should conserve the nature for our own existence.
This is the right time, if not so late, to dispose harmful scientific
interventions and to think about the constructive development which do not
disturb the mighty nature, especially when we are supplied with huge
inventories from nature itself.