India's Power Sector

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Mort Walker
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Solar is at 16.61GW production. I don’t see how to get to 100GW by 2022 target. Wind power target of 60GW may be possible by 2022, but even that remains questionable.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

100GW is a stretch goal, clearly. Mathematically, it requires CAGR of ~35% over 5 years from estimated ~22-24GW current fiscal year-end. Over the past three fiscal years since the current government came to power and pushed for solar/wind power, solar CAGR has been over 100%. That's right, solar installed capacity has doubled each of these years. 2016-17 was ~12GW, the fiscal before that ~6GW, the one before ~3GW . Current fiscal trendline is ~1GW/month addition, so they'll almost double to 22-24GW by March 2018. Continuing such CAGR is much harder, but PowerWeb estimates India PV installation base at ~58GW by 2020. Getting to 100GW in another two years is not insurmountable. Massive domestic PV manufacturing capacity is critical.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Or you could have massive PV panel imports from China, but this is highly undesirable. I would much rather see natural gas thermal power grow along with improved domestic production of PV panels. Ultimately cheap power is needed for industry at retail rates below Rs. 2/KWHr(unit) if want to see large scale manufacturing growth account for at least 25% of the GDP.

Solar power growth in India is going to come from roof top solar in many places where supply is not reliable and costs are over Rs. 6.5/unit. The economics of large scale solar farms is debatable.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

I don't see how the power ministry is claiming 16.61 GW solar power production? According to the CEA website, the last 7 months cumulative generation from April-Nov was 12,974 million-units. This is about 3.6 GW generation from solar, and even if you doubled it for 7.2 GW for the year, it's still not what the power minister has stated in parliament.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by vipins »

patanjali to manufacture solar energy equipment
"We would start manufacturing solar panels. The factory is near Greater Noida industrial area and would be inaugurated in January," Patanjali Ayurved MD & CEO Acharya Balakrishna told PTI.
The company has also acquired one Advance Navigation and Solar Technologies earlier this year.
"We would manufacture solar panels here (Noida plant). We have also plans to manufacture chips and photovoltaic cells etc for it," Balakrishna added.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

CEA data from Nov 2017:
Installed capacity: Nov 2017
Total renewables is listed as >60GW and solar at ~15GW.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Suraj wrote:CEA data from Nov 2017:
Installed capacity: Nov 2017
Total renewables is listed as >60GW and solar at ~15GW.
From this report, installed capacity is greater than actual power production. I’ll go through the numbers again. From CEA cumulative generation reports, wind and thermal seem to be using more of installed capacity than solar.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Suraj »

India reaches 20 GW in installed solar capacity 4 years ahead of target
Cumulative solar installations in India have crossed the target of 20 GW four years ahead of schedule. According to Mercom’s India Solar Project Tracker, the utility-scale cumulative installations for India now stands at 18.4 GW, with rooftop solar accounting for another 1.6 GW. For the first time, solar was the top source of new power capacity additions in India during calendar year 2017, with preliminary figures gathered by Mercom showing that solar installations reached 9.6 GW and accounted for 45 per cent of total capacity additions. The top state for solar installations was Telangana, followed by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan. India’s rooftop solar sector also witnessed steady growth last year. Rooftop solar accounts for 1.6 GW of the 20 GW of capacity installed so far, and could be bolstered by a new Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) policy. MNRE recently announced a programme that would provide distribution companies (DISCOMs) incentives for commissioning rooftop solar projects.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

I wanted to clear up the idea of RES power in terms of efficiency. Efficiency = (actual power generated/installed capacity) * 100

Thankfully, we have the reports from the Central Electric Authority about actual generation of power. See: http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/monthly/g ... opm_01.pdf

Actual energy generated from RES from 01 APRIL 2017 to 31 DEC 2017: 78256.54 GWH

78256.54 GW-Hour = 78256.54e9 Watt-Hour = 7.825654e13 (Joules/second)–Hour = 7.285654e13 (Joules/second) * 3600 second/Hour = 2.817235e17 Joules energy generated from renewable sources. For comparison 1 Kg of TNT has 3.6e6 Joules of energy. So, renewables in India have generated the equivalent energy of 78.257 MT of TNT in roughly 9 months. Again, for comparison, the Russian Tsar bomb tested in 1961 generated the equivalent energy of 50 MT of TNT in less than 1 second.

From the period of 01 APRIL to 31 DEC 2017, there were 275 days = 6600 hours = 23,760,000 seconds.

Actual power generated from RES was: 2.817235e17 Joules / 23,760,000 seconds = 11.857 GW
Installed capacity of RES from CEA: 60.158 GW
http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/monthly/i ... ity-11.pdf

What we see is a big lack of efficiency of RES which is less than 20% of installed capacity. This should raise red flags.

Thermal energy generated in the same period:
767359.43 GWH = 7.673594e14 (Joules/second)-Hour * 3600 second/Hour = 2.762494e18 Joules

Actual power generated from thermal was: 2.762494e18 Joules / 23,760,000 seconds = 116.27 GW
Installed capacity of thermal from CEA: 281.96 GW (Page 1)
http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/monthly/i ... ity-11.pdf

Efficiency of thermal power is over 41% of installed capacity. Looking at the report we can see thermal power running at less than 60% of load. A load increase of 10% will probably result in over 50% thermal power efficiency.

Nuclear: 27752.96 GWH = 2.775230e13 (Joules/second)-Hour = 9.991066e16 Joules
Actual power generated from nuclear was: 4.20 GW
Nuclear capacity: 6.78 GW
Efficiency = 62% of installed capacity

Solar power efficiency in India is about 18%, that is with figures up to 30 November 2017. India has one of the better geographical locations for solar power. I suspect efficiency of generation to capacity is less than 12% in Europe.

The best bang for the buck is nuclear power. What this means is that RES are actually 2-3 more expensive than advertised tariffs.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by jaysimha »

http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/others/pl ... _paper.pdf

The central electricity authority (CEA) is organising an internal R&D conclave on Indian Power Sector during 15-16 Feb, 2018 at vigyan Bhawan
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by JTull »

Based on Monthly data from a mix of Bloomberg and CEA website, I see the following:

Code: Select all

	Installed Capacity (MW)	    Monthly Generation (MU)	Efficiency
Dec-17	                 62,847                       8,122          17.4%
Nov-17	                 62,054                       6,894          15.4%
Oct-17	                 60,985                       6,564          14.5%
Sep-17	                 60,158                       7,516          17.4%
Aug-17	                 59,931                      10,857          24.3%
Jul-17	                 58,900                      12,928          29.5%
Jun-17	                 58,303                      10,228          24.4%
May-17	                                              8,246             
Apr-17                	 57,472                       6,917          16.7%
Mar-17	                 57,260                       5,957          14.0%
Feb-17	                 51,361                       5,862          17.0%
Jan-17	                 50,745                       5,789          15.3%
Dec-16	                 50,018                       5,463          14.7%
Nov-16	                 46,666                       5,030          15.0%
Oct-16	                 46,327                       6,274          18.2%
Sep-16	                 45,917                       8,279          25.0%
Aug-16	                 45,065                       9,571          28.5%
Jul-16	                 44,783                       9,442          28.3%
Jun-16	                 44,237                       8,118          25.5%
May-16	                 43,728                       6,786          20.9%
Apr-16	                 43,087                       5,079          16.4%
Mar-16	                 42,727                       5,269          16.6%
Feb-16	                 39,901                       4,994          18.0%
Jan-16	                 39,512                       4,377          14.9%

May-17 installed capacity data is missing. Some generation numbers are estimates and some are actuals.

Peak efficiency during summer is almost 29-30% which is very good.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

For the period of the last 9 months, RES had an efficiency of less than 20% and we will have a full picture for the year by April or May.

The key takeaway is that RES should be used for peak load during the day and thermal + nuclear for the base load. Putting all your eggs in the RES basket is clearly a very bad idea from seeing actual numbers.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by NRao »

Renewable energy poses threat to coal’s future: CIL

Feb 9, 2018.
KOLKATA: Renewable energy will start replacing coal-fired power as solar tariffs are poised to fall below Rs 2 per unit in seven years and storage costs fall, while cheaper international supply can lead to imports of 20 million tonnes, posing a big challenge to domestic suppliers, a document issued by Coal India says.

..
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

NRao wrote:Renewable energy poses threat to coal’s future: CIL

Feb 9, 2018.
KOLKATA: Renewable energy will start replacing coal-fired power as solar tariffs are poised to fall below Rs 2 per unit in seven years and storage costs fall, while cheaper international supply can lead to imports of 20 million tonnes, posing a big challenge to domestic suppliers, a document issued by Coal India says.

..
I can guarantee you that in 7 years this will NOT happen. The tariff of Rs. 2/unit is an advertised price and not production price. It is better to replace coal with natural gas. The only viable storage for RES is a fuel cell, which is at least a decade away. Until then natural gas turbines are the most cost effective and efficient way to get power. RES will are best used for peak loads.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

At the latest auctions in Colorado Solar + li-ion storage ( 4-6 hours) bid @ 4.4 cents / kWh for 2023, no subsidy. Insolation similar to most of India 1800-2000. I don,t think anyone is safe at this point. Even wind may struggle to keep up.

This is permanently low price as there is no fuel volatility.
NRao wrote:Renewable energy poses threat to coal’s future: CIL

Feb 9, 2018.
KOLKATA: Renewable energy will start replacing coal-fired power as solar tariffs are poised to fall below Rs 2 per unit in seven years and storage costs fall, while cheaper international supply can lead to imports of 20 million tonnes, posing a big challenge to domestic suppliers, a document issued by Coal India says.

..
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Rishirishi »

Mort Walker wrote:
I can guarantee you that in 7 years this will NOT happen. The tariff of Rs. 2/unit is an advertised price and not production price. It is better to replace coal with natural gas. The only viable storage for RES is a fuel cell, which is at least a decade away. Until then natural gas turbines are the most cost effective and efficient way to get power. RES will are best used for peak loads.
Don't think Coal India would say this without substantial proof.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Theo,

Don’t confuse roof top solar to what is being put on the grid. Efficiency of actual generated power to installed capacity is low for all of RES. The numbers are there from the CEA. The numbers don’t lie. For every mega-watt produced RES equals over 2 MW produces thermal and 4 MW nuclear. What this means is that you’ve got to install twice as much RES to match thermal.

<admin> irrelevant statement to no effect</admin>
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Mort Walker wrote:Theo,

Don’t confuse roof top solar to what is being put on the grid.
not rooftop, utility scale. thx
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by disha »

^Utility scale solar for base load is useless. Utility scale solar PAIRED with battery storage can at best be used to mitigate peak loads. Even for peak load compensation, there are other options equally good or better.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Rishirishi »

disha wrote:^Utility scale solar for base load is useless. Utility scale solar PAIRED with battery storage can at best be used to mitigate peak loads. Even for peak load compensation, there are other options equally good or better.
Solar can provide all the power you need. Demands typically peak in daytime, hence solar is excellent for peekload.

Storing power can be done in Hydroelectric dams and Batteries.

Ultimately there is a need for a mix of Wind, Solar and Hydro.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Katare »

Solar has already won, it’s growth rates for last couple of years have been staggering all over the world. People kept advocating how great horses were when car first came out. Horses don’t need gas, can feed themselves, don’t need roads can breed and what not.

The only really big missing thing was storage or dependability on sunlight in realtime which is now being addressed. I think we would hit or exceed 100GB target set by GoI.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

I would not say it has won just yet. I would say it is on a path to dominance. Think about this, India got to its 2022 target of 20 GW of solar 5 years early. And it was quite effortless mind you. From what I can see.

Lots and lots of folks from management to utility to politicians have been wrong consistently on this and will undoubtedly be wrong again. To be honest I too was wrong at the speed of the change. I was thinking 20,000 MW solar by 2030, 100,000mw by 2040 and I have to admit to being way wrong.

There are market projects that the cost installed solar will drop below 40 cents / watt by 2025 in India. Panel costs of 16 cents / watt. In a reasonable project environment this would be 1 cent / kwhr , under 1 rupee / kwhr. I think only the wind folks can even try to keep up. From recent bids 4 hours of Battery storage adds about 0.6 Cents / watt to the cost of the project. So you can do the math from there on how much storage you want.

Right now India is trending about 2% of electric production from solar with about 22,000 MW installed. By 2025-2030 if we get close to 200,000+ MW solar installed we will be getting close to 20% of electricity production from Solar. Another 20% from Wind. And in Hydel, Biomass, etc. we will be about 50% renewable. Most studies show that we can get closer to 70%-80% renewable in a flexible grid before the need for storage even comes up.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Katare »

Theo agree with your thoughts,
It has already won, meant it (solar power) would take it’s rightful place on the energy mix of economies and countries of the world. By no means coal would disappear or even become an insignifican player because of the inherent elasticity of all businesses. Prices would drop which would make low quality marginal fields unviable, long distance shipping would become prohibitive but high quality point of use type of coal mines would thrive. Competition and regulatory pressure would drive innovation which would make it cleaner fuel and minimize impact on environment and health. During Paris climate accord, India was the last hold up with plans build 200 coal plants over next decade but today that number has dropped down to mo more than 50-60 giga wats plants. This is where i see the victory for solar.

It certainly won’t bring leftist utopia but it won’t be laughed at by neocons either. Check this link and think how this mega change is not receiving much media spot light and how it is still being down played by the old energy establishment.

Actual solar growth rates and official predictions
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Yeah! I agree. The establishment will never change its mind. One of the reasons India ended up so far behind in the Solar manufacturing side. Establishment focused on increasing Coal and Nuclear power plant manufacturing, only to discover most of it is now a stranded asset. BHEL once had a projection to manufacture and install 25,000 MW of coal plants annually. Many $ Billlions was spent on this, most now sitting idle.

The reason for the coal shut down is a lack of demand not just Solar power. 10 years back demand was growing at 5%-10% annually. Now for various reasons demand is stagnant. Not just India the entire world is seeing this stagnation. If demand again started growing at 10% per annum coal would start growing again. If India wants Solar to win for good we need a process to install 30,000mw to 40,000mw per year. Something China does routinely. Until then coal can always make a come back.

The IEA projections are a running joke amongst the Linkedin and Twitter knowledgeable crowd. Part of the problem maybe a heat rate comparison which solar/wind do not need. The IEA paid by the establishment companies and increasingly irrelevant organization.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Katare »

I think a lot of energy efficiency drives are paying up which shows up as lower demand. All those LED bulbs and TVs are cutting down on the load.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

The reason coal is not attractive is because of natural gas and it's economics, and not solar. Thermal is and will remain the largest (>50%) producer of power in India until 2030. An installed capacity of even 200 GW solar by 2020 will generate less than 40 GW actual; whereas natural gas would need an installed capacity of less than 80 GW to generate the same actual as solar.

The true cost of solar is 3-5 times the advertised price.

The latest CEA executive summary is available for monthly figures.
http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/monthly/e ... ary-01.pdf
On page 5 from April 2017 to Dec 2017, cumulative solar generated 17312.31 Million Units.

Now please someone check my math:
17312.31 MU = 17,312,310,000 KW-Hr = 17,312,310,000,000 Watt-Hour
So this would be, 6.24e16 Joules energy from solar in 9 months.
There are 275 days in this period = 6600 hours = 23,760,000 seconds
Actual power from solar during this period = 2.63 GW

Assuming only 20 GW solar was installed as of 31 Dec 2017, then we're talking about 14% actual power generated from installed capacity. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong (and I'll be happy), but this seems horrible.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Katare wrote:I think a lot of energy efficiency drives are paying up which shows up as lower demand. All those LED bulbs and TVs are cutting down on the load.
That's the conventional view. In which case it may unfortunately be a one time thing. Once inefficiencies are wrung out demand may start surging again. We have a window of opportunity to make Renewable power the dominant mode before demand comes surging back. No better time that present to push as hard as we can.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Mort Walker wrote:The true cost of solar is 3-5 times the advertised price.
Not a clue where you are getting this from but it not correct.
Mort Walker wrote:Assuming only 20 GW solar was installed as of 31 Dec 2017, then we're talking about 14% actual power generated from installed capacity. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong (and I'll be happy), but this seems horrible.
I think it is closer to 19% but you are in the ball park. It is not a bad number, companies make a ton of money from those capacity factors. All your other objections are merit-less. There are reasons to question Solar at present but you have not listed any.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by guru.shetty »

I think many people are needlessly worried about capacity factors of high teens for solar power plants. The mistake people make is to believe that utilities are paying for power instead of energy. For the power utility/distributer, it should not matter what the capacity factor is. They are not carrying the solar panels on their shoulders. All the auctions are for price/kwh and not price/kw. The capacity factors are already baked in by the developer.

I think Indian central and state Govts (and to some extent thermal lobby) are very much aware that their electoral gravy train of cross-subsidization to industries are in danger. I think that is the reason why the GST on standalone batteries is 28% (vs for electric cars where it is just 12%). They want to make it uneconomical for industries to go off-grid. In the recent budget, Jaitley increased customs duty for lithium ion batteries from 10% to 20%.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Theo_Fidel wrote:
I think it is closer to 19% but you are in the ball park. It is not a bad number, companies make a ton of money from those capacity factors. All your other objections are merit-less. There are reasons to question Solar at present but you have not listed any.
I was being generous and it is actually closer to 12%. The 19% of actual power generated out of installed capacity is cherry picking. If 100 GW of solar is installed, you actually get less than 14 GW. If you install 20 GW of nuclear power plants, you get 14 GW. I think those figures right there question the whole purpose of putting all of your energy eggs in the solar basket.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

guru.shetty wrote:I think many people are needlessly worried about capacity factors of high teens for solar power plants. The mistake people make is to believe that utilities are paying for power instead of energy. For the power utility/distributer, it should not matter what the capacity factor is. They are not carrying the solar panels on their shoulders. All the auctions are for price/kwh and not price/kw. The capacity factors are already baked in by the developer.
If all of our energy sources for electrical power are within +/-10% of actual/installed, then you are correct. However, we are taking about 14% solar to 40% coal to over 50% for natural gas to over 70% for nuclear. Further, bidding vs. actual energy cost are different. Solar just like bidders who for thermal have proposed some very unrealistic rates. What actual energy costs are of solar parks like Kamuthi would be very interesting to know.

Base load has to be thermal or nuclear and then peak load solar. That’s what’s happening so far. It may be that wind power will actually turn out to be more cost effective and practical than solar in the near future.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Bhai check what is the rated conversion efficiency of the panels before declaring them as inefficient.

Last I had read on a casual search, it was stated to be between 15-20 %. This was for US I believe and that too based on manufacturers.

I am on the phone now but will update with a link as soon as I am back on my computer.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Again a casual search .... by no means definitive because I don't know how trustworthy this site is but indicative nonetheless.

https://news.energysage.com/what-are-th ... he-market/
What are the most efficient solar panels on the market?
The most efficient commercially available solar panels on the market today have efficiency ratings as high as 22.5%, whereas the majority of panels range from 14% to 16% efficiency rating. SunPower panels are known for being the most efficient solar panel brand available on the market.

<snip>

Cost vs. Value: More efficient solar panels tend to cost more than their less efficient cousins. You may want to analyze whether that upfront cost difference is justified by the increased saving achieved by generating more electricity over the lifespan of your solar energy system.
Image
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Ultimately is boils down to cost vs value at the consumers outlet inclusive of ALL costs. Energy conversion efficiency is but one factor in the matrix.

If solar can provide cheaper power @ 15 % efficiency vs coal @ 40% efficiency then Solar is better.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Katare »

20% is technical limit and actual is around 12-16% depending on other factors but this does not matter. Installed capacity means actual power generation capacity not 12 to 16% of of 1 GW.

Again the quotes for solar or any other form of power generation is always in kwh so none of this matters. Doesn’t matter what is plant load factor, boiler or panel efficiency or anything else as long as the quote is for per unit energy at grid.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

pankajs wrote:Bhai check what is the rated conversion efficiency of the panels before declaring them as inefficient.

Last I had read on a casual search, it was stated to be between 15-20 %. This was for US I believe and that too based on manufacturers.

I am on the phone now but will update with a link as soon as I am back on my computer.
This isn’t about panel efficiency. This is the ratio of what is generated to what is installed. The numbers come from the Central Electricity Authority of India. Thank god they are transparent in reporting.

In labs, certain panels have gotten up to 40% efficient.
Last edited by Mort Walker on 20 Feb 2018 10:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

pankajs wrote:Ultimately is boils down to cost vs value at the consumers outlet inclusive of ALL costs. Energy conversion efficiency is but one factor in the matrix.

If solar can provide cheaper power @ 15 % efficiency vs coal @ 40% efficiency then Solar is better.
Except that for the same amount of power (energy/time) you’ve got to install nearly 3 times the panels.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Mort Walker »

Katare wrote:20% is technical limit and actual is around 12-16% depending on other factors but this does not matter. Installed capacity means actual power generation capacity not 12 to 16% of of 1 GW.
Installed capacity is not what is generated, but what is capable generation. You need not believe me and look up CEA numbers I provided in the link above. That is why I asked people to verify my arithmetic. We have 9 months of data and solar installed capacity of 22 GW. Total RES installed is over 60 GW. CEA updates every month with initial and final results. By late May or early June, we’ll have complete figures for FY 2017-18 for how much energy was generated from each type of energy source.
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Re: India's Power Sector

Post by pankajs »

Mort Walker wrote:
pankajs wrote:Ultimately is boils down to cost vs value at the consumers outlet inclusive of ALL costs. Energy conversion efficiency is but one factor in the matrix.

If solar can provide cheaper power @ 15 % efficiency vs coal @ 40% efficiency then Solar is better.
Except that for the same amount of power (energy/time) you’ve got to install nearly 3 times the panels.
But if 3 times panel still make unit cost of power cheaper as compared to coal then unit value lies in solar. Comparison should be on value delivered on the investment.

So at 15 % efficiency Solar might trump Coal @ 40 % efficiency. Efficiency of power extraction is never the sole criteria.
Theo_Fidel

Re: India's Power Sector

Post by Theo_Fidel »

Mort Walker wrote:Except that for the same amount of power (energy/time) you’ve got to install nearly 3 times the panels.
Again as pointed out this does not matter. All the costs are already baked in and given in Rs / kwhr. The utility really only considers the price of the power.
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