Solar & Wind Energy

chillibreeze writer — Chandran Gopalakrishnan

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India Shining’ seems to be the catchword today. But will we as a nation continue to shine? And, for that matter, will any nation in the world? In times of rapid growth and heady progress, it is easy to lose sight of the issue of sustainability, if we had seen it in the first place. A population of over a billion which is continuing to grow, a consumerist ethic with its assumption of perpetual growth and the belief that technology can solve all human problems has brought us close to a precipice.

India, like the rest of the world has grown used to the abundant hydrocarbon resources of OPEC. Despite the lessons of the last thirty-five years, which has exposed the vulnerability of oil supplies from the Middle East to political instability in the region and despite the warnings from experts of peak oil and climate change, our policies encourage increasing use of fossil fuels particularly through increasing demand for automobiles and aviation.

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Our rapidly growing demand for outdoor lighting, air conditioning, refrigeration, industry, agriculture and railway traction brings with it a huge growth in our need for electricity and it is in power generation that an increasing dependence on oil and gas is least desirable and offers the most scope for change.

What are the real choices? Nuclear fission is often flashed as a symbol of our technical prowess. Unfortunately, the history of the worldwide nuclear power industry over the last sixty years has not been very promising. The susceptibility of uranium supplies to international politics is something we have long experienced. Apart from the risks of Chernobyl-like disasters, the costs of safeguarding high-level radioactive wastes for tens of thousands of years are externalized to society.

The potential for new scale hydroelectric projects is also limited, even if one ignores the hugely adverse environmental impacts of mega-dams. Coal is one resource that India has in abundance, but it is probably the dirtiest of energy resources, from strip mining to acid rain and greenhouse gases..

Of several renewable resources, the ones India is best endowed with are wind and solar. The Indian Wind Energy Association estimates that India has an onshore potential of at least 65 Gigawatts or half the current total energy requirement of the country. Against this, the current installed capacity is over 7 GW, making India the fourth largest producer of wind energy in the world. This indicates vast growth possibilities for the industry. The Central Government has set a modest target of 10.5 GW by 2012.

One disadvantage of wind is that its generation is not viable only in some parts of the mainly the west and south. The second is that virtually nowhere in the world is wind power usable at all times. There are times when there is no wind or it is blowing too slow or too fast to be used. Thus for local use, excess capacity and some means of storage are essential. On a larger scale, connection to a grid with other (usually nonrenewable) means of generation are necessary as a back-up.

Solar energy is more readily available than wind or other forms of renewable energy. India, sitting astride the Tropic of Cancer is blessed with abundant sunlight. In spite of this, unfortunately, we generate only about 1.8 GW of solar energy. A major reason for this is that solar energy has been largely identified with phovoltaic (PV) panels which directly convert sunlight into electricity. Though the prices of these have been coming down, they are still too high to compete with other energy sources except for certain specialized applications. Even without the high technology that PV entails, there are older technologies which may seem less efficient but are much more cost effective. This involves concentration of sunlight with the help of collectors such as simple metal reflectors, some means to store the heat and convert it into mechanical, electrical or other useful forms of energy. This can be done on a small scale for a home or through a large complex to generate electricity for the grid. Other decentralized applications of solar energy include day lighting (avoiding artificial lighting during daytime through appropriate architecture), passive solar heating and ventilation, solar cookers and water heaters. These simple technologies could significantly reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.

If government and industry were to take resource depletion and environmental degradation sufficiently seriously, we would see the level of investments in solar, wind and other renewables to keep India shining for the foreseeable future.

Read more on sustainable living in India

How to buy solar products in India
Solar & Wind Energy
Renewable Energy Sources: What will work for India?
What are we doing for the Environment in India?
Going Green: The Garbage Guru’s Revolutionary Ideas
Green Belt Movement

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