Advantage India:

India is on course to emerge as a solar energy hub. The techno-commercial potential of photovoltaics in India is enormous. With GDP growing in excess of 8%, the energy ‘gap’ between supply and demand will only widen. Solar PV is a renewable energy resource capable of bridging this ‘gap’.

Most parts of India have 300 - 330 sunny days in a year, which is equivalent to over 5000 trillion kWh per year - more than India’s total energy consumption per year.

Average solar incidence stands at a robust 4 - 7 kWh/sq.meter/day.

About 66 MW of aggregate capacity is installed for various applications comprising 1 million industrial PV systems - 80% of which is solar lanterns, home/street lighting systems and solar water pumps, etc.

The estimated potential envisaged by the Ministry for the solar PV programme, i.e. solar street/home lighting systems, solar lanterns is 20 MW/sq. kilometre.

The potential of the solar thermal sector in India also remains untapped. According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the estimated potential of solar water heating systems is 140 million sq. meters collector area. Against this, the achievement till 31 March 2007 stands at 1.90 million sq. meters only. The Ministry proposes an addition of 9.50 million sq. meters during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-2012).