India’s rapidly growing economy with more than one billion people, is facing a huge surge in energy demand. While the country has expanded over the years and stands fifth in the world in the production and consumption of electricity, electricity production is expected to fall short in the coming years. The main reasons for this increased demand are a growing population, increased economic activities and increased per capita consumption of energy with the arrival of multiple electronic and electrical gadgets. This growing demand is, therefore driving strong increase in energy generation from fossil fuels.
Currently, a major portion of energy produced in the country is from coal (53 per cent) and it is predicted that the country’s coal reserves won’t last beyond 2040-50. To meet the surging energy demand and with limitations on availability of fuels, solar energy is the best form of energy to fulfil the energy needs of India and bridge the energy demand-supply gap.
Two decades ago, as the solar industry started taking shape in India, it was predominantly engaged in providing off-grid solutions, especially in rural areas where the possibility of grid penetration was impossible. The cost of generation of energy using solar has dropped at an abnormally fast pace globally in the last decade and in last 6-7 years, in India too.
However, it is important to note that India’s quest to become a dominant player in the solar energy space started in early 2000s as the European market began to heat up. India began exporting solar modules and quickly became one of the largest exporters to Europe. However, the market was restricted to small modules used for applications such as residential lighting systems, streetlights, and some portable solar-powered devices.
Fast forward to 2022, and the Indian solar industry has evolved from a solution providing market to a manufacturing market and is growing steadily. As the market opened, companies such as Panasonic entered India and further strengthened the sector with its supreme technology know-how, R&D, quality products and skilled workforce.
The industry has picked up pace in the last 6-7 years and is now stabilising. Government policies, expanding assistance, and commitment have all contributed to the rapid expansion of solar installation in India. India entered a new phase of on-grid utility projects with the launch of the national solar mission in 2011.
It began to rise in size and numbers with a renewed drive for renewables, establishing a higher objective of achieving 100 GW of installed solar power. In contrast to established solar markets, the Indian solar market is now led by utility size projects, followed by the distributed sector, which includes residential, commercial, industrial, and smaller applications.
On the utility side, the evolution of the solar park concept has further helped installation by alleviating developers’ pain points such as site acquisition, the creation of evacuation infrastructure, and permissions, resulting in more than 50 GW of installation.
Policies such as net metering, virtual net metering, and KUSUM schemes for solar pumping systems have altered the landscape of distributed solar installation, to a large extent. PLI scheme for promoting manufacturing of raw materials in the value chain of solar too got a great response from industry and we are about to witness setting up an entire value chain in solar industry manufacturing in India in the next 2-3 years.
Solar, as an omnipresent and everlasting source of energy, is the best suited technology for generating energy at the point of consumption and assisting in the fight against climate/environmental challenges
Since 2015, Panasonic alone has installed more than 100 MWp of solar projects and distributed hundreds of MWp through distributors and system integrators.
Following COP26, there has been a significant increase in awareness of this threat, with many countries and corporations taking steps to attain net zero goals and run their operations entirely on renewable resources rather than burning fossil fuels.
Solar, as an omnipresent and everlasting source of energy, is the best suited technology for generating energy at the point of consumption and assisting in the fight against climate/environmental challenges. Climate change is real, and we now have no choice but to address the subject of climate mitigation as a major priority and renewable energy sector can help mitigate this.
India has been a major advocate for the use of renewable energy to combat climate change. We created a climate action plan in 2011 and began a national solar mission as part of our mitigation approach. The solar mission has now risen by leaps and bounds, with new aggressive targets set by our prime minister to accomplish the aim of 500 GW of renewables by 2030.
Solar installations will take the lion’s share of 280 GW out of 500 GW, and all policies in recent years have been aligned to make this goal a reality. India has achieved its goal of 57 GW of solar installed capacity by the end of H1FY22 due to successful policy execution.