National Solar Mission
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, also known as the National Solar Mission, is an initiative of the Government of India and State Governments to promote solar power. The mission is one of the several initiatives that are part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change(NAPCC).
The program was inaugurated by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 11 January 2010 with a target of 20GW by 2022 which was later increased to 100 GW by the Narendra Modi government in the 2015 Union budget of India.
The objective of the National Solar Mission is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible.
The Government revised the target from 20 GW to 100 GW on 1 July 2015. To reach 100 GW by 2022, the yearly targets from 2015-16 onwards were also revised upwards. To meet the scaled-up target of 100,000 MW, MNRE has proposed to achieve it through 60 GW of large and medium scale solar projects, and 40 GW through rooftop solar projects.
India increased its solar power generation capacity by nearly 5 times from 2,650 MW on 26 May 2014 to 12,288.83 MW on 31 March 2017. The country added 5,525.98 MW in 2016-17, the highest in any year.
Solar power potential in India:
- Since sunlight is available for long hours so India has vast solar energy potential.
- As per the study conducted by ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE), India’s solar power potential is as high as 748 GW, against our country’s cumulative installed capacity from all sources at around 275 GW.
To achieve these targets governments has started several schemes like:
Solar park scheme: Under which parks will be developed for the generation of solar energy. It will act as a flagship demonstration facility to encourage project developers and investor. This in-turn will bring further investment into the sector. Project of any technology may come in the park. The flexibility of choosing technology lie with the Solar Project Developer(SPD).
Central public sector scheme: Under which defence PSU have to set up 1000MW solar power plants on their lands. A similar scheme is also enacted for the defence establishment which are under the defence sector.
Provisions in the Budget for the solar energy:
- On the front of renewable energy, the Finance minister said the government would add 20,000 Megawatt by taking up the second phase of solar park development in the country.
- Stressing on the government’s seriousness to focus more on solar energy, he said around 7,000 railway stations would be fed through solar power in the medium term and work has already begun in that respect in 300 stations.
- Government has also provided import duty cuts on the items of solar power plant.
Challenges of the solar energy sector:
- Land availability: it is one of the major problem in land scarce country like India, where land is already in scarce. Only very few states have given assurances to provide land to the firms. Hence for rapid layout of the solar energy generation plant, it is required that land should be made available to the firms.
- Indigenous manufacturing base: India does not have solid manufacturing base of solar components. The items made by Indian companies are costlier than the foreign items. So, there has been inflow of the items from outside which is not sustainable.
- Evacuation of the solar power: it is a problem because of the poor financial health of the distribution companies.
Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI)
- SECI is a company of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India.
- It was established to facilitate the implementation of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.
- It is the only public sector undertaking dedicated to the solar energy sector. The company's mandate has been broadened to cover the entire renewable energy domain and the company will be renamed to Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI).
- The company is responsible for implementation of number of government schemes, major ones being
- the VGF schemes for large-scale grid-connected projects under JNNSM,
- solar park scheme and grid-connected solar rooftop scheme, along with a host of other specialised schemes such as defence scheme, canal-top scheme, and Indo-Pak border scheme.
International Solar alliance
The International Solar Alliance is an alliance of more than 120 countries, most of them being sunshine countries, which come either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. These countries are selected because they lie in tropical belt and have ample amount of sunshine.
The alliance's primary objective is work for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This initiative was first proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech in November 2015 at Wembley Stadium, in which he referred to sunshine countries as suryaputra ("sons of the sun"). The alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization.
The initiative was mooted by the Indian PM Narendra Modi during the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Conference(UNFCCC) in Paris in November 2015.
The Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance opened for signatures in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016, and 121 countries have joined.
Source: wiki, MNRE website
Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA)
UJALA was launched by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 1 May 2015, replacing the "Bachat Lamp Yojana". Within 1 year of its launch, 9 crore LED bulbs were sold in the country, reducing their electricity bills by Rs. 55 billion (US$820 million).
The main purpose of the scheme is to conserve energy. As this will indirectly augment the energy generation capacity. This will also help in reducing the wastage of power.
The scheme was announced as "Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP)" on 5 January 2015, urging the people to use LED bulbs in place of incandescent bulbs, tube lights and CFL bulbs as they are more efficient, long lasting and economical in their life cycle duration.
The government's target is to replace 77 crore incandescent bulbs in India with LEDs by 2019 leading to an expected reduction in installed load of 20,000 MW with an annual estimated savings of over 100 million kwh and an annual reduction of ₹400 billion (US$5.9 billion) in electricity bills. And as of January 2017, 21 crores of LED bulbs have been distributed across the country
Within 1 year of its launch, 9 crore LED bulbs were sold in the country, reducing their electricity bills by Rs. 55 billion (US$820 million). Andhra Pradesh led by distributing 1.89 crore LEDs followed by Maharashtra (1.68 crore) and Karnataka (83 lakh).
It has been adopted by over 2.3 crore people across 11 states in the country. The number of LED bulbs distributed increased to seven crores by 1 March 2016.
As of 5 December 2016, a total of 18 crore LED Bulbs have been distributed under the scheme. This led to a savings of 64.5 GWh per day in energy and Rs.25.8 crore (US$3.8 million) per day in cost and a per day reduction of 52,278 t of CO2.
Source: wiki, MNRE website