Go Solar – The new slogan for India!

Will India achieve it Solar target?

India is going all gung-ho about solar power in the country. After its decision to install an aggressive 100 GW of solar energy by 2022, the country has been working in all directions. Various states in India like Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have already installed more than 1 GW of solar power till date. Many states like Andhra Pradesh have policies favouring solar energy. Though the country has been making all possible efforts to go solar, it still faces many challenges in its way and it has now become an interesting topic to debtae if Indis will touch the finish line of the solar race!

In a recent conference on energy and mining, the Indian Power minister Piyush Goyal vocalized the importance of using renewable energy in India. He urged the power generators to stop importing coal and start looking at employing a healthy energy mix to help India attain its goal of “One Nation, One Grid, One Price”. This program will help deliver grid connected power that will be affordable for the nation at large. He also stressed that it is still not the time when India could totally do away with fossil fuel generated power, but didn’t stop laying emphasis on the usage of renewable sources of energy.

The prices of solar in the country has already gone down by 40% in just one and a half years’ time. Price below INR 5/kWh (6 cents/kWh) has become the standard price for solar in reverse auctions in India and is no longer considered a low price. In another recent news, state run power company NLC India has abandoned its plan of setting up solar project in Rajasthan. The state’s DISCOM has refused to buy power at the estimated rates. The company had invited global tenders to set up four 65 MW solar projects in TN and Rajasthan and had estimated to finish commissioning by 2016 end. India faces a lot of challenges when it comes to the successful implementation and installation of solar power across the country.

Solar power is getting popular owing to its green and cheap credentials and a solar project coms up in just 12 months’ time. However Infrastructure and transmission hurdles, absence of land at affordable rates, reliance on thermal power and DISCOM reluctance to buy power are amongst the major problems that solar development in India face. It is still expected that most of the new power development from 2019-2020 onwards should be solar power, given its vast advantages.

The country still has hundreds of millions of people still leaving in darkness and faces huge pollution problems. It is now the need of hour to turn to solar power. A move in this direction was the country ratifying the Paris Climate change deal. The DISCOMs are facing additional challenges in India, with the country turning power surplus. Even though the Indian PM is turning no stone unturned and is coming up with innovative ways to spark the Indian energy mix, India still has a long long way to go when it comes to solar installations.