The Sun Temple of Konark was built on the coast of Odisha,
some 750 years ago
In the next 5 years, India will be able to boast of a million Konarks !
By 2022 , a million building may have a “ Sun Temple “ on its roof
– a Solar panel generating electrical power ( Australia
managed ONE MILLION
rooftop installations in 4
years ! )
BACKGROUND
:
Solar capacity by 31 Dec 2016 = 9 GW / Planned addition in 2017-18
= 20 GW
With 100 GW of planned Solar
power generation by 2022,
India will truly start worshipping the Sun God ( 20 GW from Solar parks + 40 GW
from RTP – Roof Top Projects + 40 GW from Distributed Power Projects )
Only last month , the Government decided
to raise the Solar Park
capacity target from 20 GW
to 40 GW !
34 Solar parks are already under
construction in 21 States . Last month’s decision will raise this number by
another 50 parks !
But all of this audacious plan is no more than touching
the fringes of India’s renewable energy potential of around 900 GW !
WHY ?
·
For rapid industrialization , India needs to produce huge amount of
electricity
·
Coal based power plants are
emitting CO2 and particulate matter which cause dangerous pollution and bring
early death to 600,000 Indians each
year !
·
In
2016-17 ( till Feb ), India lost 5.87 Billion Units ( BU ) of power generation
due to non-availability of WATER
for COAL BASED power plants . Expect this to get worse , over the coming years
WHY
THIS SUDDEN INTEREST / EMPHASIS ?
·
Solar power generation is
absolutely CLEAN
·
Solar PV panel prices are
rapidly dropping, year after year
·
This has led to Solar power
price to drop to Rs 2.9 /
Kwh last month from Rs
7 / kwh , only 2 years ago !
·
In the latest installation at MASDAR city ( UAE ) this dropped to Rs 1.8 / kwh !
·
If India wants to replace its 200 million strong population of Petrol / Diesel
vehicles with Electric Vehicles ( EV ) by 2030 ( and 6 million vehicles by 2020 ) , then
switch over to Solar Power is imperative
If the electricity needed to charge the batteries of all of these
EVs is going to be produced using fossil fuel , then the “ Pollution Generation
“ only shifts from the roads to the Power Plants ! This is like transferring
the disease from one part of the body to another part !
WHAT IS
HOLDING BACK THIS
AMBITIOUS TARGET ?
# Import of PV
modules
At present, nearly all
Solar installations ( whether Roof Top or Ground mounted ) , are imported – and
mainly from China . Adani Group is in the process of setting up a factory to
produce PV modules ( 1 GW production capacity )
# Solar Power Storage
Solar power gets generated when Sun shines during day time . This needs
to be stored in batteries , for use during night / peak demand
Li-ion Storage Batteries are NOT made in
India and have to be imported
Imports are expensive . There is urgent
need to set up several factories ( with licensed technologies ) to reduce this
dependence on imports
# Finance / Funding
Just to finance those 40 GW of “
Small and Rooftop Solar “ installations, we need $ 50 BILLION
Around $ 100 BILLION asset finance is required during 2016-22, including $ 30 BILLION in Equity Capital
, for achieving 135 GW target by 2022
HOW TO
OVERCOME THESE CONSTRAINTS , - IN A HURRY ?
# Import of PV modules
Through bulk purchase of LED lamps ( some 800 MILLION lamps – up from
earlier sale / usage of mere 8 million per year ) , Shri Piyush Goyal managed
to knock down the price from Rs 365 to Rs 60 ! – for delivery spread over next 4 years
And then started giving these away FREE ,
to end users ( homes / offices / factories / municipalities etc )
There is no reason to think that he
cannot repeat this FEAT in respect of PV modules
During past 2 years , huge manufacturing capacity has been added by
foreign PV module manufacturers . They are hungry for orders and will bid
aggressively against a tender floated by Power Ministry
Then let Shri Goyal offer these PV modules to housing societies /
owned residences , under “ Net Metering “ scheme , with a provision to recover
the cost from those societies , over a period of 20 years , through additional “
Property Tax “ !
# Solar
Power Storage
TESLA ( Elon Musk ) is
negotiating setting up of a 100
MW “ Storage Installation “ , in Australia , within 100 days, for a price of $ 25 million
For this , TESLA will use
its POWER-WALL / POWER-PACK batteries
Can Elon Musk be persuaded to set up 1000 similar Storage
Installations in India, within 4 years ?
In my following blogs , I have explained how Elon Musk
can be persuaded to do this – and for FREE !
·
Not a Daytoo Soon ( 09 March 2017 )
·
Congrats! and a note of Caution ! ( 07 Feb
2017 )
# Finance
/ Funding
Just do what the
Indonesians did !
They announced a BLACK MONEY AMNESTY SCHEME ( no penalty / only 4 % tax on amounts declared
) – and managed to bring into the Official / Productive / Mainstream .
$ 300 BILLION
!
To know how we can find those $ 100 BILLION ( for our goal of
135 GW of Solar ),
read :
From Greed to Great ? (
01 Oct 2015 )
If we can pull this off , no one will ever question the
health / wealth benefits of,
SURYA
NAMASKAAR !
01
April
2017
www.hemenparekh.in / blogs
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