Solar energy in India

[RamaY]

^

Saar, a 1Cr bank loan costs Rs 13-15L/Yr in interest only. So your 20L/Yr income leaves the farmer paisa less during the loan repayment program for about 7-8 Yrs.

And you are nicely ignoring the operational costs which are estimated to be Rs 3L/Yr per acre.

[Theo_Fidel]

GOI gives farmer loans at 6.5%-7.5% interest rate as priority sector, with land as collateral. Same could be extended to solar. Experience shows the 3L per acre maintenance number is excessive. The SivaGanga 5 MW 25 acre plant has annual expense under 5 lakhs per annum for entire plant now for 5 years. A few strings have gone bad and the developer has simply disconnected them with a marginal effect on output.

Still this is not something I’d recommend to a small farmer. For one thing you have to deal with a monopoly utility that has no net metering requirement to take your power. No it will be done by a big corporation in large 1000MW+ chunks of capacity.

[Rishirishi]

In north there is plenty of useless land in Rajastan. The area is near to Delhi, Mumbai, Ahemedabad and Punjab. Perhaps some of the heavy industry could be clustered here. India should try to avoid expanding industrial belts arround fertile areas. In stead go for low yield crop land.

[Rishirishi]

^

Saar, a 1Cr bank loan costs Rs 13-15L/Yr in interest only. So your 20L/Yr income leaves the farmer paisa less during the loan repayment program for about 7-8 Yrs.

And you are nicely ignoring the operational costs which are estimated to be Rs 3L/Yr per acre.

You must take inflation into account. With inflation running at 10% yearly, the bank loan will effectively be reduced by 10L the first year. Or put another way.
In year 2 the income will be 22L in year 3 the income will be 24,2L in year 4 the income will be 26,3L.... at year 10 the income will be some 50L and the farmer can rapidly pay back the loan. After year 15 the farmer will be harvesting a handsome 80L per annum and the interest will be payed back.

[member_28722]

In north there is plenty of useless land in Rajastan. The area is near to Delhi, Mumbai, Ahemedabad and Punjab. Perhaps some of the heavy industry could be clustered here. India should try to avoid expanding industrial belts arround fertile areas. In stead go for low yield crop land.

+1
Also industry can be asked to setup solar panels as a source for its low voltage circuits (lights, fans, cafeteria etc ...) as a mandatory step. Next step should be encourage similar implementation in skyscrapers for their own internal low voltage circuits (make it mandatory for builders for any new construction)
This would reduce burden on normal supply in summer months when demand (and load shedding) is highest.

[Picklu]

Putting solar panel on top of road creates a cover for cyclists and other two wheelers as well. That way it makes a positive influence for people to move from car to two wheeler or better still, cycle. Win win.

[Rishirishi]

Putting solar panel on top of road creates a cover for cyclists and other two wheelers as well. That way it makes a positive influence for people to move from car to two wheeler or better still, cycle. Win win.

Good point. I have noticed the road heats up in the summer and imagine that direct sunlight damages the tarmac. perhaps the roadtop panels could save some maintance. Also the rainwater could be harvested for plantation along the road. Add the comfort it gives to cars when driving in the heat. Also the water damages the tarmac. It would be really interesting to hear from someone who knows how much the savings could be.

Imagine a road like Delhi-Agra highway. approx 200 km long and 70 meters wide. I calculate that it could be as much as 3500 acres. If 7 acre can produce 1 MW of energy then we have a whopping 500 MW between Delhi and Agra. 20 000Km of such roads should give 50 000 MW.

[Uttam]

While You Were Getting Worked Up Over Oil Prices, This Just Happened to Solar

Every time fossil fuels get cheaper, people lose interest in solar deployment. That may be about to change.

After years of struggling against cheap natural gas prices and variable subsidies, solar electricity is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity-bill prices in 47 U.S. states -- in 2016, according to a Deutsche Bank report published this week. That’s assuming the U.S. maintains its 30 percent tax credit on system costs, which is set to expire that same year.

Even if the tax credit drops to 10 percent, solar will soon reach price parity with conventional electricity in well over half the nation: 36 states. Gone are the days when solar panels were an exotic plaything of Earth-loving rich people. Solar is becoming mainstream, and prices are will continue to drop as the technology improves and financing becomes more affordable, according to the report.

Solar has already reached grid parity in 10 states that are responsible for 90 percent of U.S. solar electricity production. In those states alone, installed capacity growth will increase as much as sixfold over the next three to four years, Deutsche Bank analyst Vishal Shaw wrote in the Oct. 26 report.

[member_28714]

Putting solar panel on top of road creates a cover for cyclists and other two wheelers as well. That way it makes a positive influence for people to move from car to two wheeler or better still, cycle. Win win.

Good point. I have noticed the road heats up in the summer and imagine that direct sunlight damages the tarmac. perhaps the roadtop panels could save some maintance. Also the rainwater could be harvested for plantation along the road. Add the comfort it gives to cars when driving in the heat. Also the water damages the tarmac. It would be really interesting to hear from someone who knows how much the savings could be.

Imagine a road like Delhi-Agra highway. approx 200 km long and 70 meters wide. I calculate that it could be as much as 3500 acres. If 7 acre can produce 1 MW of energy then we have a whopping 500 MW between Delhi and Agra. 20 000Km of such roads should give 50 000 MW.

You calculation is spot on chief. A km of four laned road can give you 2.5 MW. I read somewhere that NM has a design contest open for road based solar.

[arshyam]

Another area to be considered are railway station rooftops. Most stations have some covered area which could be used to install some panels, and also RWH. Some of the bigger terminals in Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, etc. and many wayside junctions like Itarsi, Nagpur, Vijaywada, etc. have lots of covered platforms. For example, Chennai central has 11 full length platforms of 800m each - that's 8.8km length of platforms! And Howrah, CST and New Delhi are even bigger!

If a KM of 4 laned road can give 2.5MW, a large station with multiple platforms each stretching ~800m (which is the full length of a passenger train) can generate more than that. It would at least meet a good % of the station's own electricity needs, if not all.

The benefit of this is that no land needs to be acquired, and since platform roofs will be a monetary asset, it would be maintained better and not leak during rains, etc.

[SaiK]

any public space roof tops are good.. but we have to be very careful in the protection as well where we provide least access to humans, the better the technology will be left not-destructed.

bus stops are ideal and can power gps enabled route information and status of current and future services.

street lights

[member_28722]

^^^^ Solar street lights are already being used to limited extent in Guj and Raj?

[arshyam]

^^ Street lights, signal posts, etc. are used in a lot more areas, but these are usually just random piecemeal efforts. What we need is a directed plan of harnessing solar in a big way. Something like railway solar power would drive enough demand to kick start the industry and provide enough demand for large investments in making the components in the country.

[member_28722]

^^^ Yes ... agree

[RamaY]

[Rishirishi]

Forget large scale solar power plants. It seems small rooftop units are already working out cheper then coal.
This could bring a revolution for energy starved India.
rooftop systems have several advantages.

1 does not require a distribution network
2 Will cool down the top floor of a building

Disadvantage is of course storage. But battery power packs are getting cheper.



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... nt-compete

[nandakumar]

For all the promise of eventual cheap renewable/non-conventional energy, here is an article that claims the opposite. It makes two points. One, power on tap that is utterly reliable is a distant dream as for as renewables are concerned. Two, countries that currently generate a significant percentage of their total energy needs (germany, for instance) from solar or wind still need to keep in place an equivalent fossil fuel based production capacity, for any emergency. Worse, the necessity of having to back down and restart multiple times (to suit the fluctuations in renewables' availability) make them just that bit more expensive. He uses the analogy of what damages to fuel efficiency of a car that needs to run on a stop-start cycle of a traffic jam.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... ase_2.html
Posting it for experts to respond.

[Theo_Fidel]

Nandakumar,

The author is mixing up several things in a relatively incoherent manner. For instance his engine start stop analogy is terribly incorrect as it is indeed most efficient to shut off the engine at start stop traffic and use an electric car. My own electric car runs most efficiently in bumper to bumper traffic. In fact the prius does it and so do many modern cars. The prius is a perfect example where a battery based system is integrated with a ICE system and combined they are many times more efficient than they could be individually. A better analogy may have been our food supply. Our crops come in once-twice a year and most of our vegetables have a season, yet the same is available to us year around 3 times a day and we don’t notice any real seasonality. The reason is we have a storage system and a transport network that can move food from location to location as it becomes available. The integration of renewable should follow a similar path. There is always some place the sun is shining and the wind is blowing…..

That said these objections are well known and some serious research is going on how best to integrate renewables. Just yesterday CALSO reported on its latest experiences with integrating solar & wind into California’s power grid. Right now Solar peaks at about 15% to 20% of California power supply sometime in the late afternoon. So far there has been no negatives and some real positives in terms of knocking down peaking power requirements. There is an issue with the early evening period that has come up but the regulator and the utility are working on creating some storage to tide over that 2 hour gap. You can see the late peak on the charts. By 2020 CALSO is working on renewables being 33% of the power supply.

http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutloo ... Renewables
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19111

The thing is no one imagines that renewables can go to 100% tomorrow without some serious planning. Everyone is aiming for 30%-40% of the power supply being renewable as a first step. So far some challenges have come up but nothing overwhelming at least to 40%. Even in India the plan has to be to get to 40% of supply renewable first. For instance if TN had 4000-5000 MW to complement its 6,000 MW of wind then in December when the wind dies down, the solar can take over during the blistering months from winter to summer. As it is when the wind dies down, the state goes into starvation mode.

A little OT. It is very amusing to me how the tables have turned WRT renewables. Back in the day the relentless objection used to that it is too tooo toooooo expensive. Many and arguments was had on the costs. Since solar in particular is now heading to 2 cents a KW, that argument has been retired and now others are being rolled out. Solar /Wind is a commodity product, the end state will be a power cost ~ 2 cents/kw. Neither solar nor wind are even close to the limits of their potential engineering and cost reduction curve.

[Rishirishi]

For all the promise of eventual cheap renewable/non-conventional energy, here is an article that claims the opposite. It makes two points. One, power on tap that is utterly reliable is a distant dream as for as renewables are concerned. Two, countries that currently generate a significant percentage of their total energy needs (germany, for instance) from solar or wind still need to keep in place an equivalent fossil fuel based production capacity, for any emergency. Worse, the necessity of having to back down and restart multiple times (to suit the fluctuations in renewables' availability) make them just that bit more expensive. He uses the analogy of what damages to fuel efficiency of a car that needs to run on a stop-start cycle of a traffic jam.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... ase_2.html
Posting it for experts to respond.

The article is looks to me, as a part of the oil lobby, financed by the oil industry. It seems the fossile fuel industry are running out of arguments. Perhaps that is the reason for the breakdown of OPEC. In the Indian senario, storage can be done in Hydro electric dams. One can pump water up and down. The loss would be something like 15%. The cost of energy is only a part of the cost. Distribution costs are also pretty high. In parts of Australia it actually is more economically to have batterybackup and solar cells.

Expect the storage to reach USD 150 per Kwh. If we calculate an average usage of 3KW per hour, and about 12 hours of backup, we get 36Kwh. So we have 150usd x 36 = 5400 dollars. On top of this expect 7000 dollars for a PV panel, with 7Kwh of supply. It adds up to 12500 dollars or 6,26 lacs. If you take out a loan it will cost you approx 12K per month in Interest and loans. for this you can run an AC and even cook during the daytime. No gas bill and No electric bill. The best part is that this will decrease (interest repayment and inflation) and after a few years the sytem is FREEEEEEE.

An added benefit would be a protected roof from sunlight and less rain damage.

Who knows maybe the energy issue will be solved in India like the telephone issue was.
The Arabs are shitting in their pants.

[Hari Seldon]

^^Interesting times ahead for Solar, seems like.

Ideally, massive deployment around our coastal areas to take care at least of some part of the desalination thing would be great - both water and power deficits tackled with one stone. Ideally.

Near cities, if solar can power urban mass transit (and we need metro systems for our top 30 cities like y'day), the direct impact on reducing our oil import bill would be substantial.

Heck, solar is already cheaper than using diesel gensets by many accounts, IIRC. BTW, developer for the township in which moi bought a house has proposed solar panels - either decentralized (on each rooftop that each homeowner pays privately for) or centralized (cost shared by all homeowners) which can 'sell' excess power back to the grid (traded off against consumption thereby directly hitting bijli bills). AP was planning to legislate solar panels for all new residential constructions or so I heard, wonder what happened to that.

Meanwhile, massive predictions and projections continue apace...

How Solar Power Could Slay the Fossil Fuel Empire by 2030

Well, I'm a skeptic having seen fancy projections in the past as well but this one seemed interesting nevertheless.

The main obstacle to the mass-market availability of EVs is the battery cost, which is around $500 per kilowatt hour (kWh). But this is pitched to fall dramatically in the next decade. By 2017, it could reach $350 kWh—which is the battery price-point where an electric car becomes cost-competitive with its gasoline equivalent.

Seba estimates that by 2020, battery costs will fall to $200 kWh, and by 2024-25 to $100 kWh. At this point, the efficiency of a gasoline car would be irrelevant, as EVs would simply be far cheaper. By 2030, he predicts, “gasoline cars will be the 21st century equivalent of horse carriages.”

It took only 13 years for societies to transition from complete reliance on horse-drawn carriages to roads teeming with primitive automobiles, Seba told his audience.

Well, read it all.

[nandakumar]

Theo
I can certainly relate to the point about fruits and vegetables. When we were kids growing upin Chennai cauliflowers would be available only in December and January. Today it is available throughout the year. Abit expensive though in the non seasonal months. But an even better example would perhaps be apples. It is available in TN throughout the year, thanks to a central storage facility in Salem.
But on your observation about a global electricity grid, which is what I think you mean when you say that there is sun shining somewhere in the world at all times, that is a bit too optimistic given the political leadership that exists. Just to give you a localised example. There are periods in the TN wind season- May to Jan, windmill power producers would dearly love to sell excess power to Kerala. The transmission infrastructure exists to evacuate the power to Kerala. But the TN Govt couldn't be bothered.

[Theo_Fidel]

Yep! Like I said a serious rethink will be required by the powers that be and change in engineering. Like you I'm not holding my breath. We will do it because renewable is cheap. And seeing the string of undersea gas pipelines criss-crossing the globe gives one hope. One day they could be electric power lines criss crossing the globe. Still my own view is that 100% renewable is unlikely. For several generations.

In any case lets get to 40% renewable first. That is the task of our generation, at least in the 20-30 years we have remaining. Getting to 100% will be the task of our children and their children's children....
--------------------------

WRT to Kerala, a first step could be to convert the Idukki project into a pumped storage project to store surplus wind power.
------------------------------------------------------

In the Indian senario, storage can be done in Hydro electric dams. One can pump water up and down. The loss would be something like 15%.

Rishi,

A few years back I did back of envelope calculation that a single 2 MAF reservoir pumped up and down the western ghats daily could power ALL of India at night. What do you know, we already have just such a reservoir at Koyna. The western Ghats are our geological freak advantage that few other countries have. A 3000-4000 feet drop over 10-20 km. As a first step TN is beginning work on the Sillahalla pumped storage. 2000 MW. TN already has the 400 MW Kadamparai pumped storage facility, though it does not have the transmission lines yet to bank wind energy there.

[Rishirishi]

Yep! Like I said a serious rethink will be required by the powers that be and change in engineering. Like you I'm not holding my breath. We will do it because renewable is cheap. And seeing the string of undersea gas pipelines criss-crossing the globe gives one hope. One day they could be electric power lines criss crossing the globe. Still my own view is that 100% renewable is unlikely. For several generations.

In any case lets get to 40% renewable first. That is the task of our generation, at least in the 20-30 years we have remaining. Getting to 100% will be the task of our children and their children's children....
--------------------------

WRT to Kerala, a first step could be to convert the Idukki project into a pumped storage project to store surplus wind power.
------------------------------------------------------

In the Indian senario, storage can be done in Hydro electric dams. One can pump water up and down. The loss would be something like 15%.

Rishi,

A few years back I did back of envelope calculation that a single 2 MAF reservoir pumped up and down the western ghats daily could power ALL of India at night. What do you know, we already have just such a reservoir at Koyna. The western Ghats are our geological freak advantage that few other countries have. A 3000-4000 feet drop over 10-20 km. As a first step TN is beginning work on the Sillahalla pumped storage. 2000 MW. TN already has the 400 MW Kadamparai pumped storage facility, though it does not have the transmission lines yet to bank wind energy there.

Another problem is the loss of transmitting over thousands of KM. Fourtunately we have western Ghats, as you point out, but also Uttranchal, Himachal, NE, Gujrat etc with the same potential.

In practial life, one would keep the coal power stations that can run on domestic supply. The hydro dam could be added some generation capacity. bulk of the additional electricity could come from Solar (wind is too unreliable , hence will probably play a smaller role). India is blessed with Sun. Rajastan, Gujrat, TN, MP have plenty of unproductive land that could power the country.

[Theo_Fidel]

Another problem is the loss of transmitting over thousands of KM.

With new HVDC lines the loss is 3% per 1000 km. More recently UHVDC lines of 800 KV are starting to deploy with losses lowered even further. This is essentially negligible loss for any place within India. HVDC has come a long way and is starting to get deployed around the globe.

[nandakumar]

Here is a link to an article in National Geographic. It talks about sub marine power cable lines. But the comments from readers at the end of the articles argues that all this is totally unnecessary. One of them is even arguing for very small scale nuclear power plants at community level, at least that is what I think he is referring to, as a solution to long distance transmission problems. Dont know what is a realistic assessment.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... hore-wind/

[RamaY]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... plant.aspx

Going against the grain
It looks as if a vast majority of the 25 GW India plans to install will be massive solar plants, something the industry is moving away from. The reason installers aren't building plants is simple. It's easier to interconnect a 10 -100 MW plant to the grid, site the project, and get regulatory approvals to begin construction. In the U.S., Europe, Japan, and elsewhere these can be major hurdles. From the utility side, it's easier to integrate multiple small projects across a wider geographic area than one large solar power plant that can be interrupted by a single cloud.

India has eased a lot of the installer obstacles because it's helping site projects and provide land for developers. What India may not have is a grid capable of handling massive, intermittent generation sources. The country is known for having an unreliable grid that doesn't even reach millions of its residents and without the proper infrastructure like energy storage and peaker plants, massive solar plants could exacerbate the problem. This will be the biggest challenge for the country's solar plans.

[Theo_Fidel]

Meanwhile Germany just went past 25% renewable power for 2014... ..27.3% to be precise... ...on its way to 50%... ..no real show stoppers so far (cross fingers) but one needs to be more careful from here on. More attention needs to be paid to storage and backup and electric batteries/vehicles.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewab ... es-em4621/

According to preliminary surveys by the German Association of Energy and Water (BDEW), renewable energy based electricity generation reached 25.8 percent this year; up from 24.1 percent last year. Renewables provided 27.3 percent of gross domestic electricity consumption in 2014.

Electricity from renewables increased from 152.4 to 157.4 billion kilowatt-hours (expected). Wind turbines contributed 52.4 billion kWh and solar panel systems generated 35.2 billion kWh – the latter almost 14 percent more power than last year.

Biomass electricity production was up five percent from 46.6 billion kWh to 48.9 billion kWh and electricity generation from hydroelectric power reached 20.8 billion kWh.

Coal-fired power in Germany during 2014 was 10% less than in 2013. Coal’s share in the nation’s energy mix dropped to 18%. Gas-fired power plants dropped to 9.7% and nuclear energy’s share increased by half a percent to 15.9%.

2014 saw all sorts of new renewable energy related records set in Germany. Most recently, wind power achieved a new record of 29.7 GW peak power production on December 12. According to the Fraunhofer Institute, wind based electricity production on that day was 562 GWh.

” Both figures represent new records,” says Prof. Dr. Bruno Burger. ” The last records of 5th of December 2013 with a maximum power of 26.3 GW and a daily energy of 485 GWh have been exceeded by 13% resp. 16%.”

On a day in April this year, renewables made up nearly 3/4 of peak domestic German power demand.

By the end of October this year, Germany had 35.062 GW of onshore wind capacity and 616 MW offshore. Installed solar power capacity had reached 38.124 GW.

[pankajs]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 843424.cms

Vibrant Gujarat Summit: Adani Enterprises, SunEdison to invest Rs 25,000 crore in Gujarat

It's agreed to set up a joint venture with SunEdison that will invest.Rs 25,000 crore, or $4 billion, to make India's biggest solar photovoltaic manufacturing facility and signed an accord with Australia's Woodside Energy in the oil and gas business. The solar plant, to be constructed in Mundra, Gujarat, over a three-year period, will make low-cost panels capable of producing electricity that costs as much as power generated by using traditional fuels.

"The facility will manufacture solar panels to fuel solar power growth in India, furthering India's goals for clean, renewable energy independence, and will add up to 20,000 jobs to the local economy," Adani and New Yorklisted SunEdison said in a joint statement on Sunday. The venture will boost domestic solar equipment supply to meet the huge requirement of the sector in which Coal, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal is aiming for unprecedented growth.

...
Ahmad Chatila, President and Chief Executive Officer of SunEdison, said the solar plant will supply equipment at competitive rates.

"This facility will create ultra-low cost solar panels that will enable us to produce electricity so cost effectively it can compete head to head, unsubsidised and without incentives, with fossil fuels," he said. "By pairing SunEdison's solar technology expertise with Adani's extensive experience in the creation of infrastructure, we will be able to transform the region into a solar production powerhouse, creating 4,500 direct jobs and over 15,000 indirect jobs."

Adani Power said the development of the largest integrated solar manufacturing facility furthers the vision of Modi's 'Make in India' campaign. "We are happy to partner with SunEdison, a leading solar technology manufacturer, to build this facility which further integrates our power - renewable business value chain and has significant socio-economic benefits," said Vneet S Jaain, chief executive officer of Adani Power.

During the first half of 2015, SunEdison and Adani will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the opportunity and business plan before starting construction of the facility, the statement added.

Looks promising.

[vishvak]

Probably one of the best news. Now if the Navy can get these solar panels and put up 'communication posts at several locations' only to notify desi fishermen about weather and pirates and stuff, wouldn't it be wonderful.

[RamaY]

India should focus on diverting Agri & household sector electricity needs to renewable energies.

The agri-usage (water pumps mostly) can be moved to solar-submersible pumps thus eliminating free electricity programs. In fact I would recommend helping the farmers by setting up small 10KW-100KW (~10% of farm land) solar farms on lease giving ~Rs 15K-150K annual income to the farmers in addition to free water supply. This will cover 17% of total electricity demand.

The second sector is domestic use. Households should be encouraged to setup 2-5KW solar panels with battery inverter systems as part of housing permit process (like they did with solar water heaters). This covers another 21% demand.

http://www.firstgreen.co/wp-content/upl ... e-day7.jpg

[Vamsee]

RamaY garu,

Looks like Modi Sarkar is following your advice.

Personally I am ambivalent about large commitments to solar/wind.

NDA plans big rural push for green energy

[Vamsee]

Govt will need to invest Rs 15.70 lakh cr for 24x7 power supply by 2018-19

adoption of solar irrigation pumps need to be encouraged by providing 50 per cent of the cost subsidy.

[RamaY]

Back of the envelope calculation.

There are 28million agri bore-wells in India. At the cost of $2000 per bore well, India needs $56B investment to replace all these bore-wells to solar pumps. I know currently the cost of a 2HP solar pump is at $5000 but this can be brought down using economies of scale.

At $2B per 1000MW investment, it costs same as setting up 28,000MW new power plants. But it will free up 185858GWH current electricity production (as presented in above image link); which is same as 35000 MW capacity running at 60% efficiency.

You do the math!

[Rishirishi]

I am ,Vijayakumar Ramaswamy from Coimbatore,Tamilnadu. I had installed a 5240 watts solar panel for running the 5hp borewell motor for pumping water for Agriculture purpose, since the grid power availability for Agriculture usage is merely 3hrs per day and that too is not guarenteed on all days. The cost of the Panel and the pump with accessories works out to nearly 6.5 lakhs . When I approached the Ministry of New and Renewable energy in New Delhi and asked for whether any Government subsidy is eligible , so that this will be helpful for the farming community to go far self sufficiency and not to depend on free power for Agriculture. I got a favourable reply stating 30% or Rs57000 per Kw which ever is lower on the total project cost . Also MNRE said the applications should come through their nodal agencies listed in their web site. Accordingly Since I hail from from Tamilnadu, the agency is TEDA at Chennai and I had forwarded the reply received from MNRE and requested to help in availing the subsidy. In turn I received a reply stating the subsidy is available for upto 5hp pump installation and the application should be sent to them and on approval by MNRE the pump can be installed and that too the equipment should be purchased from the list of approved supplier from TEDA. But to my surprise in the list provided to me none of the supplier had installed an Agriculture pump and made it successful. How can a farmer can install a solar pump and survive . The government announcement on Renewable energy and the subsidy entitlement are not that easy for any farmer to go in for solar power water pump and the Agriculture sector will never look up if such hassles are to be faced by farmers. Any remedy to this, any one suggest or take up with Government

http://vikaspedia.in/energy/rural-energ ... /905125237

A 5kw water pump for 4,39 lacs , 3,3 lacs subsidy.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/ ... 068934.ece

The government should imideately contract a company to supply 3 million water pumps per year over 10 years. This will bring down the cost significantly. In the deal they could offer an inbuilt subsidy of max 25%. Finally farmers should be forced to pay normal price for the electricity. No farmer will buy, if they get away with free electricity.

[ramana]

Hari, Talking to some green energy folks in Hyd, what they want is
- new policy by Telangana on solar: quantum of subsidy etc.
- easy imports of panels from US and Germany.

RamaY, New houses in Hyd have solar water heaters.

[Vayutuvan]

Back of the envelope calculation. ...
You do the math!

RamaY:

RAS (Reliability, Serviceability, and Accessibility) of these solar pumps need to be taken into your calculations. The figures are not very encouraging at least for now. That means more spend on training and support for maintenance. How many people are needed to go out there with a truck and start doing maintenance of 28 million solar pumps? Solar is in bold because it adds an extra level of complexity (whose nature is technological). Also you need to include the replacement cost (through setting up a sinking fund) and depreciation and all that.

At one point we(i.e. our co. in India) wanted to do something like this for cell towers but unfortunately the reliability figures stats (MTBF statistics) were not favourable. Added to that, other problems like physical security (locks etc. could be broken and equipment stolen) were almost insurmountable. As a SME we did not have the resources to proceed even with a pilot project, so had to back out.

[Theo_Fidel]

The problem with Targeted highly subsidized solar panels is that the panels are worth a lot more in the open market. So the panels quickly get diverted to other uses.
If a subsidy is to be given it should be for all users. Let the market decide where it makes the most and best sense.

pumpsets can run at night when power is cheap and evaporation low.

[nandakumar]

A heart warming tale of how village women in Rajasthan are assembling solar lanterns.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/fea ... theme=true
After a six-month training, the solar mamas are adept at assembling solar lamps, relying on colour
codes and symbols to guide them. The hands-on practical training equips them with skills that include fabrication of charge controllers and inverters, core winding, printed circuit boards, testing, wiring, installation of solar panels, and repair and maintenance of the lamps. “These barefoot engineers have lighted up villages using solar energy not only in the remote areas of Ladakh, Barmer and Sikkim in India but also in Bhutan, Afghanistan and about 20 countries in Africa,” says Roy.

[RamaY]

Rs 1.2 lakh crore solar plan in progress for jobless tech grads, MBAs

NEW DELHI: The government is working on a Rs 1.2 lakh crore scheme to set up 20,000 mw solar power projects, or a fifth of the total solar power capacity envisaged by 2021-22, through qualified unemployed or under-employed youth in the next five years.

Government sources told TOI the scheme is part of the government's design to ramp up solar power capacity to 100,000 mw by 2021-22. The Centre is to extend an assistance of Rs 16,050 crore to help keep power tariff from solar plants set ..

Those who have a B.Tech, MBA or M.Com degree, are not older than 35 years, but either do not have a job or are under-employed, would be eligible for getting a project under the scheme. They can apply for a project either on their own or in partnership with companies and societies.

This is how the scheme is supposed to function. State governments willing to join the scheme approach the renewable energy ministry outlining how much capacity is left in their grid for handling solar power.
The spare capacity is to be identified at the level of sub-stations, or points that would receive power from the solar plants.

The projects are then allocated on the basis of spare capacity or demand indicated by each state. The states then invite application from eligible developers, with first priority to unemployed youth. Village panchayats or municipal bodies get the next preference.

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Each solar project is to be dedicated to a sub-station. The spare capacity identified in each sub-station would decide the size of its solar power project. The state utilities would notify the tariff, factoring in the central assistance, and give each solar plant a 25-year PPA (power purchase agreement) to ensure project viability.

They can extend this SMB model to farming sector as well. Every farmer with 5Acres of land should be facilitated to become a Small-Business and achieve $5-10,000 net revenue.

~100KW solar power can be generated within 1acr land. With RS 1/KWH commission, a farmer with 5 acres land can earn RS 220,000 power tariff by converting 20% of his land for solar energy.

The shaded area can be used grow some crops or for cattle grazing (using grass that grows under sun shade.).

[Vayutuvan]

RamaY:
> The shaded area can be used grow some crops or for cattle grazing (using grass that grows under sun shade.).

Aren't the panels very close to ground? May be at the height of mere 3-4 feet. How would one harvest the grass? May be one needs a small robot that can crawl under, mow the grass and push it out. Energy used for the robots should be lower than the energy equivalent of the grass harvested. That said, usage of the shaded area is for squeezing out more (from an efficiency point if view).