As a country that enjoys copious sunshine for most of the year, the subcontinent of India is an ideal place to harvest solar energy. Yet until recently, its utilization of solar energy as a component of mainstream energy generation has lagged behind many other countries, in part due to cost: a unit of electricity generated using solar energy is typically three to six times as expensive as one generated by conventional energy sources. But not for much longer. Under India’s new National Solar Mission plan, the country will invest upwards of $19 billion over the next decade to bring solar energy technologies to the forefront. The plan calls for the development of an installed capacity of fully 20,000 megawatts of power, a major increase over the current installed capacity of nearly zero. The plan also mandates that that all government-operated buildings and hospitals use solar energy. In addition to its abundance of sunlight, solar energy is also an ideal energy source in India due to the distribution of its population and the design of their homes. With many villages spread out and off the grid, solar energy offers even remote villages the ability to generate electricity. As well, because many homes in India are constructed with flat roofs, they are primed for capturing the energy of the sun efficiently.
Private firms are also joining the market, which will help the country achieve its ambitious goals for solar energy even more quickly. The company Blackstone has alone invested $300 million.
1 comments: