Ever since BJP came into power in 2014, PM Modi had placed special emphasis on harnessing the abundant Solar energy the country receives and producing power through it. With the government of India’s focused efforts in democratising the use of Solar energy, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) survey in its research found out that India is the world’s cheapest producer of Solar power.
Owing to low-cost panel imports from China, abundant land and low wage labour, the cost of building large-scale solar installations in India fell by 27 per cent in 2018, Year-on-Year. The cost of large-scale installations in Canada is highest amongst the countries involved in producing power using Solar energy, almost thrice that of India’s cost.
More than 50 per cent of the total cost in building a solar installation in India involves costs related to hardware, racking and mounting, while the remaining cost is divvied up between soft costs such as system designing and financing. Considerably cheap labour and lower service expenses have also aided in the steep fall in the finance needed to establish large-scale solar power-generating projects. The setup cost in India fell by about 80 per cent between 2010 to 2018, the most remarkable reduction observed in any of the other countries.
The Solar power arena is progressing leaps and bounds. Last year, 94 gigawatts of new capacity was added, mostly by Asian counterparts. China added 44 gigawatts of Solar energy, almost 5 times more than India. US, Japan, Australia and Germany are other nations where there has been a steady rise in the solar power generation field.
As countries move towards cleaner sources of energy, the rising demand and less cost of installation will further spur the utilisation of renewable source of energy, especially in Asian countries which are heavily reliant on non-renewable sources of energy such as coal, oil etc. It will play a pivotal role in decarbonisation.
PM Modi had been one of the most foremost proponents of Paris Climate Agreement. As a part of the Paris Climate Agreement, India has agreed to reduce its greenhouse emissions by 35 per cent till 2030. Solar energy will play a key role for India to meet its intended targets.
