India to Announce National Solar Energy Plan

With climate change negotiations set to begin in Copenhagen on December 7th, some nations are beginning to articulate commitments to renewable energy deployment in lieu of adopting binding carbon emission reductions. Rapidly developing economies, in particular, are opposed to emission reductions as they fear such caps will slow and limit economic prosperity. And so it goes with India, which is expected to announce details of the nation’s solar energy plan sometime this week.

The “National Solar Mission,” initially identified as a priority in the 2008 National Action Plan (NAP) on Climate Change, may set capacity targets for both solar pv and concentrated solar thermal power generation throughout the region. According to the NAP, the solar energy plan may also include details on

a major R&D programme, which could draw upon international cooperation as well, to enable the cre­ation of more affordable, more convenient solar power systems, and to promote innovations that enable the storage of solar power for sustained, long-term use.

Articulating both targets and the country’s dedication to solar energy research and development will allow other nations to have a better understanding of the degree to which India is committed to thwart climate change before official negotiations in Copenhagen begin.

Solar energy technologies have the to potential to bring much of rural India out of poverty. As a distributed resource, solar pv panels could power regions that are currently disconnected from the electrical grid. In addition, distributed solar energy could prove a more reliable source of electricity than standard grid connection, which is plagued by fairly frequent power outages, requiring many to rely on diesel-powered generators to provide backup when the lights go off.

Clearly, technology isn’t the hurdle to overcome. Rather, it is how India will finance a massive deployment of solar energy, which is still not cost competitive with other forms of power available on the subcontinent. According to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA), less than 1% of electricity currently generated in India is from solar resources.