About Solar Power In India 

Solar power plants are a necessity at places in India like remote hilly areas and islands for providing electricity to improve the standard of living of the people.Financial constraints in the public sector and non-remunerative characteristics of economics act as disincentives to private entrepreneurs, which are impediments to the national programme of solar electrification of villages. Despite these constraints, the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources, Government of India is attempting to electrify as many villages as possible with the solar photovoltaic system.Constant endeavour towards improvement in technology and competitiveness among players in the fields of manufacture, supply, and installation are leading to reduction in costs, but not at the sharp rate that is competitive with conventional power. However, it appears that direct conversion of solar power to electricity is cheaper in India than in Germany.

Electrification of remote villages

Besides food, shelter, clothing, and employment, the next priority in villages is affordable energy for cooking and lighting. The first important task, a gigantic task, will be to build a network for cooking with LPG (liquified petroleum gas) to do away with the drudgery and unhealthy practice of cooking with firewood/agricultural residue by millions of families in India. The second important one will be to provide electricity to improve the living conditions to act as an essential catalyst in alleviating poverty. However, there is a serious problem of extending the power line to the unelectrified 80 000 villages in the country, which are located far away from the grid. Extending a line to these villages will be very expensive, and villagers will find it difficult to bear the tariff burden. Moreover, 20 000 villages have been identified as unapproachable from the grid line and will have to depend on alternative sources of power. These alternative sources could be solar or wind energy, biomass, biogas, or micro-hydel energy, which may be locally available to be harnessed in a useful manner. Incidentally, only these sources have been found to be technologically and commercially viable until now, especially in villages that are situated beyond a certain distance from the grid line.

Application of solar power

A solar power plant is a good option for electrification in areas that are located away from the grid line or where other sources are neither available nor can be harnessed in a techno economically viable manner. A solar power plant of the size 10–100 kW (kilowatt), depending on the load demand, is preferable particularly with a liberal subsidy and low-interest soft loan from financial institutions. The idea is to raise the quality of life of the people subjected to poverty in these areas. This coupled with a low-gestation period, simple operation and maintenance are resulting in installation of solar power plants in remote areas of many states that need electrification. In contrast, extremely high cost of solar power plant installation is an obstacle to grid-connected applications in urban areas. Instead of a centralized power generation and distribution, individual DLS (domestic lightingsystems) are also common in many rural unelectrified houses. The initial thrust for centralized plants with a distribution network to supply off-grid and quality power, i.e. power at the right voltage and frequency, came from a demonstration unit in Sagar Island in West Bengal. The plants in Sagar Island started with the unique feature of training people to operate and maintain the plants, besides generating an awareness through interaction with prospective consumers who at a later stage could take up the management on a co-operative basis. Following the same pattern, biomass-based power plants have also been set up in that area. Thus participatory involvement of the local people has ensured sustainability of the programme. The SPV (solar photovoltaic) mode of electrification started in 1998 after a system on a trial basis was commissioned in Kamalpur village in 1996. The four important components in a solar power system are solar modules, battery, inverter, and charge controller, besides other BOS (balance of system)/components. These four components incur more than two-thirds of the total cost.