Essays

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) was officially launched on January 11, 2010 in address problems of India's energy security as well as climate change. The Mission was launched with full backing of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the ambitious targets to harness solar energy in the next one decade. JNNSM, which figures as one of the eight missions in India's National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), seeks to generate 20,000 MW of electricity through solar energy by the end of 13th Five-Year Plan in 2022. The three-phased project aims to generate 1,000 MW of electricity through solar energy by 2013, and an additional 3,000 MW in the minimum by the year 2017.

The JNNSM would be responsi-ble for: (a) the deployment of commercial and near commercial solar technologies in the country; (b) establishing a solar research facility at an existing establishment to coordinate the various research, development and demonstration activities being car-ried out in India, both in the public and private sector; (c) realizing integrated private sector manufac-turing capacity for solar material, equipment, cells and modules (d) networking of Indian research efforts with international initiatives with a view to promoting collaborative research and acquiring technology where necessary, and adapting the tech-nology acquired to Indian conditions; (e) providing funding support for the activities foreseen under (a) to (d) through government grants duly leveraged by funding available under global climate mechanisms, and earnings from deployment of research spon-sored by the Mission.

JNNSM has set a national target of 20 Gigawatts of solar generation capacity by 2020 and also plans to deliver on the creation of 100,000 new jobs through the course of the plan. The Mission will significantly contribute lo low carbon sustainable development strategy for the Indian economy, implementation would be through appropriate institutional mechanisms suited for effective delivery of the Mission's objec-tives and include public private partnerships and civil society action. The focus will be on promoting understanding of climate change, adaptation and mitigation, energy efficiency and natural resource conservation.

The JNNSM is expected to signifi-cantly increase the share of solar energy in the total energy mix while recognizing the need to expand the scope of other renewable and non-fossil options such as nuclear energy, wind energy and hionia.ss. Since India is a tropical country, where sunshine is available for longer hours per day and in great inten-sity, solar energy has great potential as future energy source. India also has the advantage of permitting a decentralized distribution of energy, thereby empowering people at the grass-roots level. In addition, photovoltaic cells are becoming cheaper with new technology and there are newer, reflector-based tech-nologies that could enable setting up megawatt scale solar power plants across the country.

An important aspect of the Solar Mission is to launch a major research and development programme, which could draw upon international cooperation as well, to enable the cre-ation of more affordable, more convenient solar power systems, and to promote innovations that enable the storage of solar power for sustained, long- term use. Proposed R&D activities in respect of solar thermal power generation would cover design and development of concentrating solar thermal power systems, including parabolic troughs, central receiv-er systems, and dish/engine systems. The R&D effort would be directed mainly at reducing costs of production and maintenance, and include both production design and fabrication/assembly tech-niques.

In addition, R&D would cover balance of systems issues involved in hybridization with bio-mass combustion based systems and/or molten salts thermal storage. The Mission's R&D activities in respect of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation, for the near and medium term would include improvement in solar cell effi-ciency to 15 per cent at commercial level, improvements in PV module technology with higher packing density and suitability for solar roofs, and development of lightweight modules for use in solar lanterns and similar applications.

Being largely located in the equatorial sun belt of the earth, India receives about 5,0(X) trillion kWh/year equivalent energy through solar radiation. In most parts of India, clear sunny weather is experienced 250 to 300 days a year. The annual global radiation varies from 1600 to 2200 kWh/m², which is typical of the tropical and sub-tropical regions. The average solar insolation inci drill over India is about 55 kWh/m² per day. This means just one per cent of India's land area can meet the country's entire electricity requirements till WW.

The advantage of solar based power technologies is that they are an extremely clean form of generation with practically no torm of emissions at the point of general inn. They would lead to energy security through displace-ment of coal and petroleum. Transmission and distribution losses are also very low in decentralized systems and deployment can be done independently of the national grid and integrated with the national grid when needed.

Solar Thermal Power Generating Systems (STPG) or Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) use concentrated solar radiation as high temperature energy source (> 500°C) to produce electricity. The working mechanism for solar heat to electricity is fundamentally similar to that of tradi-tional thermal power plants. STPG technologies are now on the verge of significant scale commercialize-tion. Major technologies include parabolic trough or dish, dish-engine system, central tower receiver sys-tem, and solar chimney that drive an air draft tur-bine without raising steam.

Over the 11^th and 12^th Plan periods, the Mission aims to deliver at least 80 per cent coverage for all low temperature (<150° C), and at least 60 per cent coverage for medium tempera-ture (150° to 250° D applications of solar energy in all urban areas, industries, and commercial establishments. Rural solar thermal applications would also be pursued under public-private part-nerships where feasible. Commensurate local man-ufacturing capacity to meet this level of deploy-ment, with necessary technology tie-ups, where desirable, would be established. Further, tilt- Mission aims for local Photovoltaic (PV) pro-duction from integrated facilities at a level of 1000 MW/annum within this time frame. It also aims to establish at least 1000 MW of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) generation capacity with such technical tie-ups as essential within un- stated time frame.

In the long term, the Mission aims to network Indian research efforts in solar technology with global initiatives in three areas—solar PV, solar thermal, and biomass. This will be done in order to enable delivery of solar solutions to India's energy needs in tandem with developments worldwide. The Mission would direct Indian solar research initiatives to deliver truly dis-ruptive innovations that cut across more than one approach or technology. These include: (a) getting the same electrical, optical, chemical and physical performance from cheap materials as that delivered by expensive materials; (b) developing new para-digms for solar cell design that surpass current effi-ciency limits; (c) finding catalysts that enable inex-pensive, efficient conversion of solar energy into chemical fuel; (d) identify novel methods of self-assembly of molecular components into functionally integrated systems; and (e) developing new materi-als for solar energy conversion infrastructure, such as robust, and inexpensive, thermal management mate-rials.

The ultimate objective of the Mission is to develop a solar industry in India that is capable of delivering solar energy competitively against fos-sil options from the Kilowatt range of distributed solar thermal and solar PV to the Gigawatt scale of base load priced and dispatchable CSI' within the next 20-25 years.