Question

Illustrate the current status of development and government policy on the same resource in about 150 words.

Answer 1

India lies in a sunny tropical belt (High isolation).Its total theoretical available potential is annually over 5000 trillion kWh. Exploited potential (production/installed capacity) is very little including total installed capacity (grid & off grid) of approximate 110MW and that only about 17.82MW (as of Dec 2010) is grid connected (as of Jan 2011). The significant demand projections indicate excellent potential for solar PV module industry.In the year 2009 annual global solar PV capacity had increased by 55% rising from 14 GW by end of 2008 to over 21GW.By 2011 the opportunities in the global sector module segment had 130% growth over the previous year. A 25MW plant of solar PV module can be set up in a space of less than half an acre. In 2006, the Rural Electrification Program was the first step by the Government of India in recognizing the importance of solar power. It gave guidelines for the implementation of off-grid solar applications. However, at this early stage, only 33.8MW of capacity was installed through this policy in 2012.