Table of Contents
India’s energy mix
- India has relied heavily on coal-fired power plants which have generated 72% of the country’s electricity in 2018-19.
India’s solar potential
- India’s combination of abundant sunshine (about 300 sunny days in a year) and a large energy-hungry population makes it an ideal location for solar.
- According to World Energy Outlook Report, India has huge solar potential of around 750 GW..!!
- In light of this the GOI has already started many initiatives to ramp up Solar energy capacity.
Indian Solar Mission
- International Solar alliance etc
- India’s solar capacity has reached 36.6GW at the end of the first quarter of 2020, with the aim of growing to 100GW by 2022.
Challenges
- To achieve the 100 GW target, India needs to invest around $50 billion in the next three years.
- Technology & domestic manufacturing..!!
- Finding the right place..!!
Finding the right place..!!
- Solar farms need to cover large areas of land.
- Land is expensive in India and often has multiple owners with too many formalities.
- High population density also puts pressure on the land.
- Note:
- Rooftop solar panels are one solution, but sunny space atop buildings is limited too..!!
Solar canal potential
- In states like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra canals are mainly used for irrigation.
- For instance, just the state of Gujarat has more than 80,000km of canals. Even if 30% of these canals are made, 180 GW of power could be produced, saving 90,000 acres of land.
Benefits of Solar canals
- Solar power plants can be built much faster than large coal or gas power stations.
- Reduces the evaporation losses from the canals.
- Water below solar panels helps the panels to remain cool, which increases their efficiency by at least 2.5-5%.
- Reduces emission and helps in INDCs.
Is everything so Perfect?
- Canal-top plants are more expensive to construct than normal solar plants.
- Supports have to be galvanised with a protective zinc layer.
- Dimensions of canals are different (Every project new plans).
- Meandering canals.
- Cleaning and maintenance.
- Environmental effect.
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