India is classified as an ‘energy-poverty’ nation – one that lacks adequate infrastructure for electricity generation and delivery. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) 400 million people do not have access to electricity. Electrification rate in rural at an abysmal 50% is one of the lowest in the world.
For a country that aspires to leadership position in the coming world order this is serious deficit. Mindful of global concerns over climate change and goals of industrial growth the Government of India has taken major steps to augment conventional energy generation by building capacity in the renewable energy sector such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower.
Launching of The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission on January 11, 2010 is a major step in this direction. Speaking at the inaugural Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh, said “Increased use of solar energy is a central component of our strategy to bring about a strategic shift from our current reliance on fossil fuels to a pattern of sustainable growth based on renewable and clean sources of energy.”
The potential of harnessing solar energy is high. Most parts of the country receive 4-7wh (kilowatt-b) of solar radiation per square meter per day 250-300 days in a year. This solar energy can be made use of in two ways - the Thermal route which uses heat for drying, heating cooking or generation of electricity and the Photovoltaic route which converts light in solar energy in to electricity which can be used for a myriad purposes such as lighting, communication, pumping and generation of electricity. As it admits of grid and non-grid global distribution, solar energy is very apt for Indian conditions.
This National Solar Mission has before it a multiplicity of goals. It hopes to transform the quality of life of the rural population – “the people at the grassroots level.” The rapid spread of solar lighting systems, solar water pumps and other solar power-based rural applications is expected to change the face of India’s rural economy.
A major objective of the Solar Mission is replacement of fossil-based energy produced from coal and oil by the abundantly available, clean solar energy. This will help India meet its global and national commitments of reducing carbon emissions.
The Solar Mission hopes to promote the rapid scaling up of capacity in the sector and encourage technological innovation, which in turn will generate economies of scale and lead to employment opportunities. . A robust growth, on the models of western nations such as Germany is expected.
The Mission recognizes that costs of generating solar energy is currently high on absolute costs as compared to other sources of power such as coal. The objective of the Solar Mission is to create conditions, through rapid scale-up of capacity and technological innovation to drive down costs towards grid parity. The Mission anticipates achieving grid parity by 2022 and parity with coal-based thermal power by 2030. This however is contingent upon scale of global deployment and technology development and transfer.
There are however a number of off-grid solar applications particularly
for meeting rural energy needs, which are already cost-effective. These are being promoted by subsidies of the central and state governments.
From an energy security perspective, solar is the most secure of all sources of energy since it is abundantly available. Theoretically, a small fraction of the total incident solar energy (if captured effectively) can meet the entire country’s power requirements. While, today, domestic coal based power generation is the cheapest electricity source, future scenarios suggest that this could well change as the country moves towards imported coal to meet its energy demand. The price of power will have to factor in the availability of coal in international and the cost of developing import infrastructure. It is also evident that as the cost of environmental degradation if factored into the mining of coal, will increase the price of raw material significantly. If Full Cost Accounting (FCA) were done, taking in ALL costs of production, solar energy would be one of the most feasible options for the country to meet the country’s long-term energy needs.
The objective of the National Solar Mission is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The immediate aim of the Mission is to provide an enabling environment for solar technology penetration in the country both at a centralized and decentralized level.
The first phase (up to 2013) will focus on capturing of the low-hanging options in solar thermal; on promoting off-grid systems to serve populations without access to commercial energy and modest capacity addition in grid-based systems. In the second phase ( 2013 – 2017), capacity will be aggressively ramped up to create conditions for up-scaled and competitive solar energy penetration in the country. During phase 3 (2017-22) the Solar Mission hopes to achieve 15 million sq. meters solar thermal collector area by 2017 and 20 million installed power by 2022. In addition it hopes to deploy 20 million solar lighting systems for rural areas by 2022. The rapid and large-scale diffusion of Solar Energy will require a concomitant increase in technically qualified manpower of international standard. It is envisaged that at the end of Mission period, Solar industry will employ at least 100,000 trained and specialized personnel across the skill spectrum.
Currently, the bulk of India’s Solar photo voltaic (PV) industry is dependent on imports of critical raw materials and components – including silicon wafers. Transforming India into a solar energy hub would include a leadership role in low-cost, high quality solar manufacturing and enabling government policy which promotes PV manufacturing plants, including domestic manufacture of silicon material, for setting up manufacturing plants for solar thermal systems/devices and components.
Major research and development is required to improve efficiencies in existing materials, devices and applications and establishing new applications by addressing issues related to integration and optimization, developing cost-effective storage technologies which would address both variability and storage constraints, and on targeting space intensity through the use of better concentrators, application of nano-technology and use of better and improved materials. In Phase I, at least 1000 young scientists and engineers would be incentivized to get trained on different solar energy technologies as a part of the Mission’s long-term R&D and HRD plan.
The aspiration of the Solar Mission is to ensure large-scale deployment of solar generated power for grid –connected as well as distributed and decentralized off-grid provision of commercial energy services. This will be done in a policy and regulatory environment which provides a predictable incentive structure that enables rapid and large-scale capital investment in solar energy applications and encourages technical innovation and lowering of costs.
In order to enable the early launch of “Solar India” and encourage rapid scale the Ministry of Power, the NTPC and the Central Electricity Authority are introducing schemes which would simplify the off-take of solar power and minimize the financial burden on Government.
There can be no more fitting tribute to the sun and all things solar, than the Prime Minister Manmohan’s words with which he concluded his inaugural speech at the launch of The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, ‘The Sun has long been recognized as a primal source of all energy on earth. In an ancient civilization like India, the Sun has been worshipped as the God who bestows life and sustains it. The bounty of the Sun is truly inexhaustible, renewable and free. It is to this source of energy that humankind must turn to meet the twin challenge of energy security and climate change.’
