Despite a huge population and massive economic growth, India remains one of the least carbon intensive countries in the world and far below Australia’s per capita emission rate, which is one of the highest in the world.
Even so, India is considering embarking on an ambitious renewable energy plan, known as the National Solar Mission. The National Solar Mission is not just about addressing greenhouse gas emissions, but providing cost-effective energy solutions to meet rapidly growing electricity demand; a demand so great already that blackouts are not uncommon in the country.
Currently, India has diesel generation capacity of 20-25 gigawatts to address peak power shortages and it’s projected that the shortfall may reach 60 GW by 2020. Given the high costs of diesel power generation, use of grid connect solar power is considered quite competitive for distributed generation on a large scale. Cost of transmission and distribution would be negligible since these solar power plants would already be connected to the grid via the residential, commercial and public buildings where they would be installed.
As part of the Mission, it will also become compulsory for all hospitals, guest houses, hotels, nursing homes residential complexes with a minimum area of 500 square meters to install solar hot water systems. 40-50 million sq. metres of roof area is currently estimated to be available for installation of solar collectors for hot water applications throughout the country.
The Mission would also expand current solar lighting programs to provide access to lighting for an additional 3 million households by 2012 in urban and rural areas. Solar charging stations are also proposed for solar lanterns currently being distributed in rural areas.
