India is poised to increase its solar power deployment to 100 gigawatts by 2022. Current contribution from solar grid in India is only less than 5 GW and the target is almost half of the solar installation around the globe.
A study presented at the U.N. climate talks in Paris by Stanford's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance says India's solar ambitions are achievable. Moreover, it would be an effective power tool for the South Asian democracy. India is planning to deploy solar power in three segments viz. Utility scale, distributed and off-grid. Moreover, sun power will help India to fill its estimated gap of 20 percent in its electricity demands.
India is globally now at the third place, behind China and U.S. in carbon emissions. At any point of time in future, India may overtake to the first position as energy demand is increasing day by day. India now depends heavily on coal for energy production. The focus on solar power should certainly help the country achieve reduction in aggregate emissions, the study says.
Since India's most of the states are sunlit for almost all the months in a year, the plentiful sunlight could be easily converted into sustainable source of energy. Total renewable energy target for India is 175 gigawatts and it expects 60 GW from wind energy, up from 25 GW today. Stanford study says a small fraction of the underutilized lands in India could support production of 750 GW of green energy and that can easily surpass its entire power plant fleet.
Varun Sivaram, Gireesh Shrimali and Dan Reicher, researchers at the Stanford says achieving even a substantial fraction of India's solar goal will be a daunting challenge, but it should not have to tackle it alone, as International institutions would support through finance and technology to achieve the commitments.
Earlier in the mid August, Cochin International Airport Ltd. or CIAL in Kerala, a southern state of India, had become the first airport in the world to become fully powered by solar energy. The first public-private partnership airport in India has the capacity to produce 60,000 units per day.
World's First Solar-powered Airport.
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com