Solar Energy in India has immense potential due to the massive growing demand of energy in an already deficient country.The Indian government too has realized this and set an ambitious plan of 20 GW by 2020 under JNNSM.Despite teething problems in the first phase of JNNSM,India should manage to grow its solar power capacity by more than 10x in 2011 to 700 MW.According to IREDA which is the main government renewable energy finance $2.2 billion would be invested in 2011 to grow the capacity to 700 MW.Note despite this impressive rise,note solar power in India comprises less than 0.5% of the total installed electricity capacity in the country and the growth comes off almost a non-existent base.

Solar Power costs have come down at a rapid rate in recent times with grid parity with retail prices already having been reached in countries like Italy,Turkey etc.The rise of the Chinese Solar Panel producers has been instrumental in bringing down the solar panel costs by almost 65% in the last 3 years making solar-powered electricity almost on par with expensive electricity.Solar Power growth in India has already attracted numerous foreign solar global majors with First Solar investing more than $500 million to set up a thin film CdTe manufacturing plant near Chennai,Tamil Nadu with an investment of more than $500 million.The second phase of JNNSM is to start soon and in this round the government is supporting even larger solar farms with up to 25 MW capacity.

India set to produce 700 MW solar power in 2011

India is on track to produce 700 megawatts of solar power at a cost of $2.2 billion by December, ahead of an initial target for an ambitious plan that seeks to boost green power generation from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2022.

While India’s solar sector remains a risky venture because of a shortage of data and trained manpower, such deficiencies also open up a huge market for expertise and technology such as Colorado-based Juwi Solar, Schneider , Schott Solar.

“The (Solar Mission’s) second phase would create a very large market for service providers, especially EPC contractors and people who can analyse data to ascertain how much resources like sunlight are available and how much (solar energy) is going to be produced,” Majumdar said.