7/30/2019 Energy Need in India
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Indias energy needs can be met entirely by solar and other
renewable sources, says a new study by
two professors at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in
Bangalore. Their report published in the
journal Current Science may add ammunition to the anti-nuclear
agitation in India.
The analysis by Hiremath Mitavachan and Jayaraman Srinivasan of
IIScs Divecha Centre for
Climate Change overturns the argument that nuclear power is
essential for India because the countrydoes not have enough land to
exploit the potential of solar energy in India.
According to their study, 4.1 per cent of the total uncultivable
and waste land area in India is enough
to meet the projected annual demand of 3,400 terawatt-hour (TWh)
by 2070 by solar energy alone (1
terawatt-hour per year equals 114 megawatts). The land area
required will be further reduced to 3.1
per cent if we bring the other potential renewable energy
sources of India into picture, they claim.
They conclude that land availability is not a limiting
constraint for the solar source as believed.
They say their calculations are based on present-day solar
photovoltaic (PV) technology and do not
include higher efficiencies achieved by new solar cells. Neither
have they considered roof-top PV
systems that can be established without any need for additional
land.
The IISc researchers conclusion is in conformity with that of a
report prepared last year by the
Australian government which said: There is more than enough
suitable land in India, with high
direct beam solar, to meet the entire nations electricity needs
in principle.
Convinced that sunlight differs from other energy sources in the
way it uses the land, the researchers
compared the land-use pattern of three primary energy sources
coal, nuclear and hydro with
solar energy. They then calculated the percentage of Indias land
area that would be required to meet
the future projected energy demand.
Coal power plants not only transform the land around the
facility but also require land for miningcoal and its upstream
processing, the authors note. An average dam displaces 31,340
persons and
submerges 8,748 hectares of land. The direct land footprint of a
nuclear power plant includes power
plant area, buffer zone, waste disposal area and the land that
goes into mining uranium.
Our study shows that solar power plants require less land in
comparison to hydro-power plants and
are comparable with coal and nuclear energy power generation
when life-cycle transformations are
considered, Mr. Srinivasan said.
While nuclear and fossil fuel-based technologies must
continuously transform some land to extract
the fuels or dispose of the waste, this is not the case with
solar plants. In fact, the same land used for
PV solar power plants can be utilised for other purposes like
grazing.
The roof-top solar power technology, along with that proposed by
IISc professors, will be able to
meet most of the electricity demand, and has the potential to
transform the power sector, says
Shankar Sarma, a power policy analyst and author of forthcoming
bookIntegrated Power Policy.
