Harnessing Solar energy, Options for India

Foreword
Worship the sun god, the Lord of the Universe,
a rising light with effulgent rays, revered by one and all.
(From the Sanskrit hymn, Aditya Hridayam, Ramayana)
This century’s global challenge is energy: how to increase the generation, how to make it equitable
and affordable, and also how to keep the environment pristine without warming the planet or
polluting the atmosphere. Among the renewable, sustainable and carbon-free energy generation
options, solar stands out. One hour of sunshine on our planet, if stored adequately, can meet the
global needs for an entire year. Regrettably, however, it remains largely unviable because of low
collection efficiency and the large area required to receive sunshine. An installed capacity of 50 MW
requires almost 100 hectares of land. Compare this with a natural gas generating station, where even
1 or 2 hectares would suffice.
An attractive option would then be to change the present pattern of energy generation. Instead of
building large generation farms, is it possible to consider building small energy centres, perhaps
even at homes and small stores that needs only a few watts to kilowatts of energy? These may not be
grid connected, but would be as reliable and efficient as electricity from conventional sources. The
challenge will then become one of making these resources efficient and economical. New innovations
tend to be costly and error-prone, but with experience costs come down and efficiency and
reliability increase. The scale of dissemination, and not necessarily size, will also reduce costs. At the
initial stages, the support of government becomes crucial. Subsidies, tax rebates and easy-to-payback
loans are all necessary to make this transition to solar, technologically and economically
attractive.
This report on harnessing solar energy options for India, supported by the Shakti Sustainable Energy
Foundation, Climateworks Foundation and SSN Foundation, discusses the routes that are viable for
rural households in India. Perhaps in the coming decades harnessing solar energy on a large scale
may become more efficient and affordable. Until then, distributed energy systems are a compelling
option. This is largely the message of this report.
CSTEP is continuing its pursuit of studying various options for not only generating energy efficiently,
but also for storing it. A few of these studies are turning out to be promising and we hope to share
our results in the coming months.
Dr. V. S. Arunachalam
Chairman, CSTEP