People And Their Problems

New Delhi, 10 March 2007

Power Generation Target

TOWARDS PROMOTING SOLAR ENERGY

By  Radhakrishna Rao

Though India has an enormous renewable energy potential, the current installed capacity of around 8100-MW derived from renewable energy sources including sun, wind and biomass constitute abut 7% of the total installed power generation capacity in the country, even though India is one of the pioneers in utilizing a part of its huge reserve of renewable energy sources.

Against this backdrop, India’s Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources has set an objective of achieving an installed power generation capacity of 10,000 MW from renewable energy sources by 2012.  Of course, the non-polluting and abundantly available solar energy constitutes an important component of the strategy aimed at boosting the popularity of renewable energy sources in India, which are considered both cost effective, local specific and non-polluting.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has decided to install 10- million metres of solar collectors during the Eleventh Plan period. As it is, the Plan would involve installing solar heaters in about 3.5 million individual houses in the country. In addition, industrial units and commercial establishments spread across the country would also be covered under the solar energy popularization programme.

As envisaged now, this ambitious programme, when implemented in full, is expected to result in peak saving about 5,000 MW in addition to abatement of 7.5 million tonnes of highly polluting carbon di oxide emissions annually.

Union Minister for Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Vilas Muttemwar points out that the availability of solar energy for upto 300 days a year in various parts of India is a major positive factor for going ahead with the popularization of solar energy devices in the country. He drives home the point that India has a total potential for generating about 200,000 MW energy from non-conventional energy sources.

Meanwhile, there is growing conviction that inexpensive and flexible solar cells could help avert the looming energy crisis haunting the humanity. For right at the moment, the technology for designing and developing solar energy gadgets continues to be far from economically viable and as such the current thrust is on refining and upgrading the technology to the level at which it would be possible to develop inexpensive solar cells.

For decades, solar cell researchers have tried to develop cheaper alternatives to silicon. For instance the US-based Konark Technologies has come out with a technology appropriate for developing inexpensive and easy to carry solar energy devices. Konark plans to join hands with the multi-national Siemens for taking some critical steps towards changing how we think about harvesting energy from the sun who has been glorified in the Hindu spiritual literature as a “powerhouse of inexhaustible energy”.

Interestingly, a couple of years ago, Indian President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam became the first global citizen to get two refrigerator-cum-vaccine coolers, totally powered by the sun. This solar chill uses a breakthrough technology aimed at making the process of refrigeration accessible even to the remotest parts of the world and hence help several social causes such as vaccination projects for polio eradication.

This device was developed by Rajendra Shinde who as the head of the Ozone Action Unit of the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was keen on engineering a solar power driven chilling device with a view to reduce the emission of green house gases responsible for global warming. In fact, the idea of developing such an innovative cooling system struck him during a bus ride in the poverty stricken African country of Burkina Faso in 2000.

Looking out of the bus window at the children of the rural poor and thinking about their fragile health, it occurred to me that the plenty of sunshine does not mean plenty of health. I thought that if we could develop vaccine cooler that uses solar energy abundantly available there, it will be an environmentally perfect product” quipped Shinde.

All said and done, the energy efficiency of the currently available solar photovoltaic system which convert sun light into electricity is rather low at around 7-17%. If the efficiency of the solar photovoltaic could be pushed up further, it could lead to a drastic fall in the cost of energy generation.  As such efforts are on to use materials like thin films and gallium arsenide in place of silicon for solar energy devices.

Of course, some experimental solar photo voltaic cells now convert nearly 40% of the solar energy into electricity. The cost of production is quite high due to the high price of silicon crystals. Of course, research efforts are underway for engineering new and cost effective fabrication techniques. In India state owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) and Central Electronics Ltd. (CEL) are in the forefront of engineering and producing devices meant for exploiting the solar energy.

As it is, the solar photovoltaic power system developed by BHEL have been pressed into service in various locations of India---from 30 KWP supply to data collection platform at Leh in Jammu and Kashmir to 10 KWP hybrid power plant at Lakshadweep island in the Arabian sea to photovoltaic system for offshore platforms and for railway signaling panel interlocking and microwave repeater stations.

A recent success story of the BHEL’s solar energy system was in Mousuni island in West Bengal where the country’s largest solar power plant is in operation. Designed, manufactured and commissioned by BHEL, the 105 KWP plant has changed in many ways the lives of the islander who had for long been deprived of the benefits of electricity. This solar energy plant caters to individual houses, schools, street lights and waterpumps.

Interestingly, the BHEL has also supplied space grade solar cells for the satellites designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) The Bangalore-based TATA BP Solar is a major player in the solar water heater systems.

Meanwhile, the New Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has warned that if India fails to speed up and augment the use of renewable energy sources, India’s import of costly and highly polluting fossil fuels would continue as usual. “The country needs to undertake all possible options on the demand and supply side simultaneously to reduce total energy requirements as well as diversity its fuel resources mix”, says the TERI study. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)