Solar Power in India Since 2014

By Feb 2020, India had installed 35 GW of solar power generation capacity. Solar power tariffs in India are among the lowest in the world.

As of 2019, a third of the world’s total installed solar capacity was in China, and 7 % in India.

The NDA government chose a strategy that prioritised retaining a low minimum tariff on projects while increasing protection against imported panels, thereby forcing developers to buy panels at a higher cost. Since then, bidding processes have slowed down, highlighting the incompatibility of these goals. 

In Jul 2020 Modi said that as part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, the country’s aim is to end its dependence on import of all equipment, including solar panels.

International experts said in March 2020 that India has seen too much policy inconsistency and change, as well as state-centre conflicts, plus the drag of national policy objective contradictions to be on track to achieve the goal of creating 175 GW renewables capacity by 2020.

The history of Solar Power in India till 2014

The Department of Non-Conventional Energy Sources was formedin 1982. 

Indian renewable energy development agency was formed in 1987 to operate a revolving fund for developing, promoting and commercialization of New and Renewable Sources of Energy.

From the late 90s, Independent Renewable Power Producers were given the right to wheel the (renewable) power through existing transmission lines of the State Electricity Boards on payment of reasonable charges for selling the power to any third party in the country. 

Upgradation of technology for solar photovoltaic cells was undertaken.

By 2007, 3000 villages were electrified using solar technologies. There were 2000 solar power plants in operation, and over 6 lakh solar lanterns / 3 lakhs home lighting systems in use. Over 60,000 street lighting systems were in operation.

Government of India launched Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in 2010, as one of its eight missions under National Action Plan on Climate Change. It was believed that solar power can be important in attaining energy independence. 

As of April 2014, India's total installed capacity through grid connected solar power plants had crossed 2.2 GW.

In SIX Years, NDA Managed to Increase Electricity Generation from Renewables only by 3.5+ %

I have been reading about solar power in India again – last I read in-depth was I think in 2017. I found then that the rosy headlines were far from the reality of many stumbling blocks on the way of serious renewable power adoption in India.

In today’s reading also, I found a great distance between the reality and headlines. What matters is NOT installed capacity (large portions of which may never be used and which become net contributors to climate change because of the CO2 generated in constructing them), but the electricity generation mix.

After all the sound and fury of the last six years, in 2019-‘20, India generated nearly 10 % of its electricity using wind-power, solar, biomass and mini-hydro.

In SIX years of constant soundbites, the improvement in electricity generation mix in favour of renewables was only a little over 3.5 % - in 2014 it was 6.38 % of the total electricity generated, and in 2020 it was 9.99 %.

The UPA government had achieved similar improvements in electricity generated from renewables in the 5 years before demitting power to NDA : from 3.76 % of the electricity generation from renewables to 6.38 % - that is a little over 2.61 %.

In fact, in the 5 years after taking power, NDA had a similar performance : It improved the electricity generation in favour of renewables from 6.38 % to 9.24 % : nearly 2.86 %.

So the NDA government at best takes the work of the UPA government forward in its logical trajectory. It makes a whole lot of noise to show astronomical achievements which are never there on the ground when I check. Besides, it does enormous damage in other areas of life in India.

Only 6 countries draw 50 % or more of their total energy from non-fossil fuel sources

Am I glad to be proven wrong ! Electricity generation to the extent of 70-100 % of fully 21 countries was from renewable sources in 2016. 

50-70 % of the electricity generation of another 27 countries was from renewable sources. so thats close to 50 countries in the world whose generation of electricity 50 % and above is from renewables. 

30-50 % of the electricity generated in a further 16 countries was from renewables. 

20-30 % of the electricity generated in a further 15 countries was from renewables. 

Thus 79 of the 195 countries in the world, i.e. 40 %, now have atleast 20 % of their total electricity generation from renewables. We need to ramp this up !

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But when looked at another way - fossil fuel consumption as a % of total energy consumption - then the picture is disappointing. Only 21 countries in the world use 20 % or more of their total energy in the form of non-fossil fuels. And only SIX countries draw 50 % or more of their total energy from non-fossil fuel sources. 

Obstacles in the path of Green Energy in India

Despite the compelling reasons for India to follow a green path into the future, serious obstacles remain, not least the sorry state of the country’s coal-fired power industry, currently forced to slow its operations by a surplus of electricity in the market.

“These guys are hurting,” an analyst says, and that has knock-on effects for India’s slowing economy. “They have taken loans, and they can’t sell electricity, so they can’t repay the loans. And if they can’t repay the banks, the banks have no money to lend for more growth.” Recent months have seen a backlash against renewables, with intensified lobbying for coal.

Another analyst says: “We’ll [do] it because we don’t have that much high-quality coal. We are already hitting high pollution [levels]. We already have issues with imports, and so energy security is a big factor. All of those things will lead us to moderate (the use of coal for energy).”

The key to raising low-cost finance in India (for green energy) is by reducing risks for large foreign and domestic investors as well as by raising funds from the domestic and foreign retail market. Instruments like payment security mechanism – that ensures the investor will be paid for the amount of energy fed into the grid even if the DISCOM defaults – and a government-sponsored foreign exchange hedging facility to reduce the risk of currency fluctuation, can go a long way in increasing the confidence of investors and thereby reduce the costs of finance. Similarly, raising funds from the market via green bonds, etc., can also become an important source.

The MNRE has fixed the maximum permissible tariff at ₹2.68 per unit. A developer who did not wish to be quoted said the proposal for tariff cap would “kill the market” considering the rupee nearing an all-time low of 72 against US dollar. He added that the projects bagged at ₹2.44 last year are already suffering as shipments of photo-voltaic modules ordered for those projects have to be cleared now, at an effective exchange rate.

The National Solar Energy Federation of India has appealed to Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh to intervene to get private solar developers that have commissioned projects in Karnataka their payments.

The projects with power purchase agreements signed with Solar Energy Corporation of India, have been commissioned and are feeding power to the grid. But the power producers have not been receiving payments due to the delay in assigning scheduled commissioning date for these projects.

According to industry sources, the projects of major players such as Hero Future, Adani Group, ACME, and Actis, with a cumulative capacity of 970 MW, are stuck. This means around ₹6,000-crore loans could become non-performing if the matter is not resolved.

Energy from Renewables..

The following are some of the highlights of what i have been reading lately on global warming :

• In November 2016, the Arctic was already experiencing extraordinary anomalies. Temperatures were 20C above normal.

• “The consequences of failing to keep the temperature below 1.5 C will be to wilfully condemn hundreds of millions of the poorest citizens of Earth to certain deaths from the severe impacts of climate change.”

I started looking for some of the ways forward for countries to bring down Co2 emissions.. there are dozens of ways, and among them are :

• Retrofitting existing buildings can save 70-90% of the energy used to heat and cool them. Such a move also tackles fuel poverty, creates local jobs and reduces deaths from cold. 

• Switching transport from fossil fuels to electricity powered by renewables, cuts emissions but also removes the air pollution that is responsible for an epidemic of lethal respiratory disease. In Europe alone, about half a million people suffer premature deaths each year due to air pollution.

• In 2015, Denmark generated 140 percent of its electricity requirements on one particularly windy day from wind turbines alone, the excess of which was exported to Germany, Norway and Sweden. In 2016, Germany came remarkably close to being completely run by clean energy for a day due to a surge in wind and solar power. 

• That same month, Portugal was powered solely by renewable sources for 107 hours, which is roughly four-and-a-half days, setting the bar higher. 

• But the Central American nation of Costa Rica beat all the European countries with its landmark achievement in green energy in 2016. For more than 250 days the country used zero fossil fuels and drew its electricity from hydropower plants, wind turbines and geothermal installations. Thanks to such efforts, the notion that renewables can run a whole country is no longer unfathomable. In fact, it is now an ideal to aspire to.

• In November 2016, many, mostly low-income countries, from Bangladesh to Tanzania and Guatemala, committed to switching entirely to renewable energy by 2030-50 at the latest. China is installing more new wind energy capacity in a single year than the UK has in total.