Green energy

Learning from the Germans

Places blessed with sunshine for a major part of the year would have an enormous pool of solar energy to tap from. India receives an estimated 5,000 trillion kWh of energy per year, with most parts receiving 4- 7 kWh per sq m per day. I found out that this amount of energy can, theoretically, satisfy the country’s energy requirement as per 2004-2005 figures. The trick is in harnessing solar energy through suitable infrastructure and working out the economics so that solar energy can compete with conventional coalderived electricity. By all accounts, the David of solar energy appears to be competing with the Goliath of coal-based energy. An Indian household pays Rs 1.5-4 per kWh for conventional energy (excluding off-peak hours).

The costs become prohibitive with solar: Rs 15-18 per unit. The odds seem to be stacked against solar energy uptake. But the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission would have us believe that is not the case. The objective of the mission is to create conditions, through rapid scale-up of capacity and technological innovation, to drive down costs.

The mission intends grid parity by 2022. The goal of this mammoth solar energy mission is to produce 20,000 MW of power from the sun by 2022.

The programme seeks to add 150 MW capacity in the first year of its mission. It has evolved a mechanism to fund this expensive power.

The power trading company, NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd, will buy solar energy from companies and bundle it with cheaper coal-fired electricity from its parent NTPC Ltd.

The bundled power will then be sold to distribution companies. The Solar Mission believes this arrangement will assure the project of buyers.

There is also talk of feed-in tariffs  coming into play, whereby the government offers the producer of solar energy a guaranteed purchase for electricity generated from solar energy sources within long-term contracts— 15-25 years.

The system has been a runaway success in not-so-sunny Germany, backed by what experts term the world’s most effective policy framework at accelerating deployment of renewable energy technologies. In Germany where land is at a premium, solar panels on rooftops, warehouses and soccer stadiums have been transforming the country’s primary energy mix.

Companies are required to pay even the smallest of producers a premium for the renewable energy their system adds to the grid.

This has inspired technological innovation in the solar photovoltaic industry. In early 2009, the German research institute Fraunhofer ISE set a record for developing PV systems that can convert 41.1 pc of the solar energy it receives into electricity.