Solar explosion in India

The Indian government aspires to use solar energy to modernize the national grid and reduce its reliance on coal-fired thermal power plants. At the same time, the Indian army will apply solar technology to ensure military operations in the Siachen glacier region - the highest battlefield in the world.

Since two years ago, Indian policymakers announced an ambitious plan that by 2020, the country will increase its solar supply capacity from zero to 20,000 MW.

Government subsidy policy

Although solar energy is clean technology, but in Northwest India, it can also be tainted with dust. Every five days, people have to dust the 36,000 solar panels on the premises of the Azure Power Plant, which is 25.7ha wide. Azure only needs to use 10MW to provide enough power for a town of 50,000 people.

Inderpreet Wadhwa, managing director of Azure factory predicts that in the next few years, solar power will be able to compete with conventional electricity in India. Once effective and demand for solar technology increases, costs will decrease.

India currently has dozens of solar development facilities such as Azure, due to the government's subsidy policy while the cost of solar panels falls sharply on a global scale. In northwestern India, more and more villages are glistening with solar panels.

Workers are cleaning solar panels

Chinese manufacturers such as Suntech Power and green energy Yingli increase production of solar panels and cut prices by 30-40%. Solar equipment suppliers in the US, Taiwan and Europe also offer incentives for the technology to quickly become a trend in India.

More competition

In the past decade, the Indian Government has encouraged and assisted private businesses to join the energy industry. The government only takes over distribution and balances the proportion of allocating facilities across the country. Solar operators are forced to compete more on prices.

In December 2011, the Government of India organized a second auction to fix the price of NTPC state-owned trading company Vidyut Vyapar Nigam to buy solar power for the national grid. The average bid price is 16.5 US cents for 1kWh / hour. This level is twice as much as the price of electricity generated from coal, but is 27% lower than last year's bidding price. For comparison, Germany - the largest country using solar power, pays 23 US cents for 1kWh / hour.

Despite being behind European countries in the use of solar energy, India has a natural advantage thanks to more than 300 sunny days per year. As equipment prices plummet, the cost of setting up solar farms in India is also lower than those of pioneers in clean and green technologies. In addition to the federal government, some Indian states like Gujarat are also buying electricity at subsidized prices from power plants like Azure.

The deployment of solar energy in India also raises a number of issues: suppliers devalue or resell bidding packages to third parties. Even so, Mr. Wadhwa commented that the market will gradually stabilize with the development of long-term committed businesses in the technology industry.

In addition to solar power applications, Indian troops make the most of wind and solar energy, to cut fuel, oil and other fuel use, reduce environmental pollution in the Siachen glacier region.

Last year, the Indian government invested US $ 65 million in the energy conversion project in the glacier region - the world's hot spot by the dispute between the Indian and Pakistani armies. The above project helped Indian soldiers stationed in the glacier area (temperature of –40 ^° C) with enough electricity to serve living and communication.