Solar Power in India

Submitted By : BISWAJIT SAMANTA (Department of BBA(Batch:2019-2022))

University Roll No: 15205019084

Solar power in India is a fast developing industry. The country's solar installed capacity reached 31.696 GW as of 31 October 2019.India has the lowest capital cost per MW globally to install the solar power plants.

The Indian government had an initial target of 20 GW capacity for 2022, which was achieved four years ahead of schedule. In 2015 the target was raised to 100 GW of solar capacity (including 40 GW from rooftop solar) by 2022, targeting an investment of US$100 billion.India has established nearly 42 solar parks to make land available to the promoters of solar plants.

India expanded its solar-generation capacity 8 times from 2,650 MW on 26 May 2014 to over 20 GW as on 31 January 2018.The country added 3 GW of solar capacity in 2015–2016, 5 GW in 2016–2017 and over 10 GW in 2017–2018, with the average current price of solar electricity dropping to 18% below the average price of its coal-fired counterpart.By the end of September 2019, India has installed more than 82,580 MW of renewable energy capacity with around 31,150 MW of capacity under various stages of installation.

Installated cumulative national and state-wise capacity : 

Major photovoltaic power stations  : 

              4 MW horizontal single-axis tracker in Vellakoil, Tamil Nadu

Government support :

Fifty-one solar radiation resource assessment stations have been installed across India by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) to create a database of solar-energy potential. Data is collected and reported to the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) to create a solar atlas. In June 2015, India began a ₹40 crore (US$5.6 million) project to measure solar radiation with a spatial resolution of 3 by 3 kilometres (1.9 mi × 1.9 mi). This solar-radiation measuring network will provide the basis for the Indian solar-radiation atlas. According to National Institute of Wind Energy officials, the Solar Radiation Resource Assessment wing (121 ground stations) would measure solar radiation's three parameters—Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI), Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) and Diffuse Horizontal Irradiance (DHI)—to accurately measure a region's solar radiation.

The Indian government is promoting solar energy. It announced an allocation of ₹1,000 crore (US$140 million) for the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission and a clean-energy fund for the 2010-11 fiscal year, an increase of ₹380 crore (US$53 million) from the previous budget. The budget encouraged private solar companies by reducing the import duty on solar panels by five percent. This is expected to reduce the cost of a rooftop solar-panel installation by 15 to 20 percent.

Solar-panel manufacturing in India :

The 2018 manufacturing capacity of solar cells and solar modules in India was 1,590 MW and 5,620 MW, respectively. Except for crystalline silicon wafers or cadmium telluride photovoltaics or Float-zone silicon, nearly 80 percent of solar-panel weight is flat glass. 100-150 tons of flat glass is used to manufacture a MW of solar panels. Low-iron flat or float glass is manufactured from soda ash and iron-free silica. Soda-ash manufacturing from common salt is an energy-intensive process if it is not extracted from soda lakes or glasswort cultivation in alkali soil. To increase installation of photovoltaic solar-power plants, the production of flat glass and its raw materials must expand commensurately to eliminate supply constraints or future imports.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), India, has issued a memorandum to ensure the quality of solar cells and solar modules.Compliance with the requisite specifications will grant manufacturers and their specific products an entry in the ALMM (Approved List of Models and Manufacturers.)  Indian manufacturers are gradually enhancing the production capacity of monocrystalline silicon PERC cells to supply better performing and enduring solar cells to local market.

For utility scale solar projects, top solar module suppliers in 2016-17 were: Waaree energy ltd, Trina Solar, JA Solar, Canadian Solar, Hanwha and GCL Poly . For rooftop solar projects, international companies with the largest market share in the Indian market were: Waaree energy ltd, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, Renesola, REC Solar and Jinko Solar.

Rural electrification :

The lack of an electricity infrastructure is a hurdle to rural India's development. India's power grid is under-developed, with large groups of people still living off the grid.In 2004, about 80,000 of the nation's villages still did not have electricity, 18,000 out of them could not be electrified by extending the conventional grid due to inconvenience. A target of electrifying 5,000 such villages was set for the 2002–2007 Five-Year Plan. By 2004 more than 2,700 villages and hamlets were electrified, primarily with solar photovoltaic systems.The development of inexpensive solar technology is considered a potential alternative, providing an electricity infrastructure consisting of a network of local-grid clusters with distributed electricity generation. It could bypass (or relieve) expensive, long-distance, centralized power-delivery systems, bringing inexpensive electricity to large groups of people. In Rajasthan during Financial Year 2016-17, 91 villages have been electrified with a solar standalone system and over 6,200 households have received a 100W solar home-lighting system.

India has sold or distributed about 1.2 million solar home-lighting systems and 3.2 million solar lanterns, and has been ranked the top Asian market for solar off-grid products.

Lamps and lighting

By 2012, a total of 4,600,000 solar lanterns and 861,654 solar-powered home lights were installed. Typically replacing kerosene lamps, they can be purchased for the cost of a few months' worth of kerosene with a small loan. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is offering a 30- to 40-percent subsidy of the cost of lanterns, home lights and small systems (up to 210 W_p).Twenty million solar lamps are expected by 2022.

Agricultural support 

Solar photovoltaic water-pumping systems are used for irrigation and drinking water. Most pumps are fitted with a 200–3,000 W (0.27–4.02 hp) motor powered with a 1,800 W_p PV array which can deliver about 140,000 litres (37,000 US gal) of water per day from a total hydraulic head of 10 m (33 ft). By 30 September 2006 a total of 7,068 solar photovoltaic water pumping systems were installed, and 7,771 were installed by March 2012.During hot sunny daytime when the water needs are more for watering the fields, solar pumps performance can be improved by maintaining pumped water flowing/sliding over the solar panels to keep them cooler and clean. Solar driers are used to dry harvests for storage. Low cost solar powered bicycles are also available to ply between fields and village for agricultural activity, etc.

Rainwater harvesting

In addition to solar energy, rainwater is a major renewable resource of any area. In India, large areas are being covered by solar PV panels every year. Solar panels can also be used for harvesting most of the rainwater falling on them and drinking or breweries water quality, free from bacteria and suspended matter, can be generated by simple filtration and disinfection processes, as rainwater is very low in salinity.Good quality water resources, closer to populated areas, are becoming a scarcity and increasingly costly for consumers. Exploitation of rainwater for value-added products like bottled drinking water makes solar PV power plants profitable even in high rainfall and cloudy areas by the increased income from drinking water generation.