India invokes Sun God to fix its energy crisis (Feature)

By Siddhartha Kumar Feb 22, 2010, 5:04 GMT

New Delhi - India, where many Hindus begin their day by worshipping the Sun God and has several temples dedicated to the deity, is starting to turn to the higher power to resolve a severe energy crunch.

The country is blessed with radiant sunshine: it ranks at the top among the world's countries in in terms of annual solar energy yield, according to recent studies.

But it is also a country where 412 million of its 1.1 billion people live without electricity, faces an energy deficit of 16 per cent and needs power desperately to drive its high economic growth.

Aiming for long-term energy security, the government has unveiled plans to boost solar output almost 1,000-fold to 20,000 megawatt by 2022.

The 'Solar India' initiative, to be implemented by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, would power cities and rural areas and could revolutionize the domestic solar-energy industry.

The renewable-energy project is among eight key tasks of the national action plan on climate change.

As a first step to popularize solar energy among Indians, who are largely unaware of its potential, authorities have opted for the religious route.

Major religious sites that attract millions of worshippers and tourists - the Tirupati, Vaishno Devi and Shridi temples, the Sufi Ajmer Sharief shrine and Sikhism's Golden Temple - have or are planning to install solar cooking, heating and electricity systems.

Fossil fuels currently account for 70 per cent of India's energy mix, while renewable sources provide about 9 per cent.

'Given the ground realities, major challenges include effective financing, advancing R&D in technologies for solar modules and components and human resources like training engineers and technicians,' said Rajinder Kumar, secretary general of the Solar Energy Society of India.

'We have to bring in a balance of system, distribution and maintenance to realize our solar dream,' Kumar said.

The investment required for the three-phase programme is around 50 billion dollars, of which the government would contribute about 40 per cent.

There is little clarity on where the remainder should come from, with Indian expecting that rich countries with a responsibility to assist renewable projects in the developing world would provide the funding.

The strategy currently framed would include a long-term policy to purchase power and shift subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable-power generation.

'We need to reduce high-initial costs for solar-power generation and build grids of scale to allow rapid diffusion of solar technologies and large-scale domestic manufacture of equipment,' renewalbe energy ministry spokeswoman Prabahvati Akashi said.

The ministry says there is 'tremendous interest' from companies and entrepreneurs for the pilot programme based on feed-in tariffs.

Following a recent launch of small commercial solar farms, the Clinton Foundation is setting up 3,000- to 5,000-megawatt (MW) solar energy parks in northern Rajasthan.

The first phase will focus on solar thermal systems to use the sun's energy to create heat. It promotes off-grid systems to serve populations without access to commercial energy as well as modest capacity addition in grid-based systems.

In a second phase, capacity is to be augmented to create conditions for competitive solar energy penetration.

But the mission has been criticized at 'too grand,' and perhaps needs scaling down.

'You need to include the vast number of rural financial institutions and also emphasize production of more income-generating products that are energy efficient,' said Harish Hande, founder of Selco-India, which provides low-cost solar systems to villages and slums.

Siddharth Pathak of Greenpeace India said there is little chance of realizing the mission's objectives unless plans are backed by political will and sizeable investments.

India is on strong ground, technologically, with developed capacities of over 700 megawatt annually, largely in the photovoltaic segment. In absence of a domestic market, companies have been exporting most of their photovoltaic cells and modules.

Bibek Bandhopadhyay, head of the state-run Solar Energy Centre, said solar energy will become more attractive as generation costs are expected to decline markedly within five years due to technological advances and global deployment, and will reach grid parity with most thermal fuel sources.

'I believe Solar India takes off at the right time, when we have requisite expertise and a robust manufacturing base,' Bandhopadhyay said.

'With uncertainty on the conventional energy front, I feel renewables, particularly solar, is the future. I don't think the targets are (too) ambitious. We will do it.'