India becoming big player on global solar energy map

India is rapidly becoming force to reckon with in global solar energy development. The government has already laid out a rather ambitious plan for solar energy development with a target of 100 GW of installed solar power capacity by 2022.

Optimism could soon turn to realism because India is taking big steps in that direction. It is expected that India will pass the 15 GW mark by the March 2017 while the current capacity is somewhere at 8-9 GW.

Not only that, India is expected to increase its module and cells manufacturing capacity to 10 and 2 GW respectively, in the next couple of years.

There are still some issues that need to be solved in order for solar to have clear path towards the bright future.  The most obvious issues include inadequate government funding and cheap imports (mostly from China).

Solar energy industry needs to be cost-competitive with other energy industries in order to thrive and become one of the most important industries in the country.

In this sense, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is likely to be over 18% could significantly hinder further growth of solar energy development in India. There have been calls from developers to exempt solar from GST but whether solar will get this privilege still remains to be seen.

Read more...

Solar vs. Wind – Potential, price and production

Solar energy and wind energy still remain the most popular clean energy options for much of the people across the globe, even despite their current relatively low impact on global energy demand. Solar and wind energy industry are also among the fastest growing industries in the world, providing new jobs for many people all over the world.

Scientists have estimated that the total solar energy absorbed by our planet is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. Solar energy has enormous potential, and covering only 4% of the world's deserts with solar panels would be enough to satisfy all of the world's electricity demand.

Solar power, despite having an enormous potential is still far behind fossil fuels in terms of energy use. This is mostly because solar energy is still connected with relatively high costs, even despite the recent decline in prices of solar power technologies. For instance, solar energy (at the beginning of the 2012) had the average price of 15-18 cents per kilowatt hour, approximately three times more expensive than the price of coal and natural gas.

Together with decreasing the costs solar power technologies will also have to improve efficiency because an average photovoltaic cell has an efficiency of only 15%. Despite these drawbacks global solar energy demand has grown at about 30% per year over the past 15 years and photovoltaic production has been growing by more than 20 percent each year since 2002. The world's largest photovoltaic markets are at this moment United States and Germany.

The total energy potential of wind power on land and near-shore is around 72 TW. This is enough to satisfy for over five times the current world's energy use. Worldwide wind energy production at the end of 2010 was 430 TWh, which is about 2.5% of the worldwide electricity usage. I

In 2010 global wind power sector experienced a growth rate of 23,6 %, the lowest growth rate since 2004, mostly because of the major decrease in new wind farm installations in United States. The main driving force that pushes global wind energy industry forward is China. China is currently the world's largest wind energy producer, and in 2010 China accounted for more than 50 % of the world market for new wind turbines. The largest wind market in Europe is Germany followed by Spain.

On global level, wind energy industry currently employs more than 670,000 people.

Read more...

Why is solar energy yet to fulfill its enormous potential?

 Solar energy has tremendous potential and only a small fraction of totally available energy coming from Sun would be more than enough to satisfy the entire world's energy demand.

Many energy experts agree that there is only a matter of time before solar energy becomes top energy source.However,  there is still one huge stumbling block that solar energy industry will have to overcome– high costs of photovoltaics. 

Photovoltaics are devices that convert sunlight into electricity. Not only will photovoltaics have to become cheaper but they'll also have to become lot more efficient because current average efficiency of 15-18 is far from being enough to challenge much bigger efficiency of fossil fuels.

The efficiency of photovoltaics is primarily limited by the amount of sunlight that is absorbed, and science is looking at different techniques to enhance absorption of these devices and ensure minimal energy losses.

The scientists also hope that future solar cells will utilize more of the available solar spectrum for power generation as another major step towards increased efficiency.

Together with reduced costs and improved efficiency of solar power technologies, solar energy industry still has one major task- to decrease the influence of fossil fuel lobbies.

Fossil fuel lobbies, most notably oil lobbies, are still extremely powerful, and they often use their enormous political influence to get major political decisions going their way.

Solar energy still isn’t a widespread energy source, and despite the fact that global solar energy capacity is constantly increasing it still counts for very little on global level, namely satisfying less than one percent of total worldwide electricity demand.

There is no doubt that solar energy still has many obstacles on the road to becoming dominant energy source. But given its almost unlimited energy potential it’s really only a matter of time before solar energy will rule the world.

Read more...