DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, if works out as planned, could turn out to be the UPA government's flagship initiative just like the National Rural Employment Generation (NREGA) scheme.  Among the various initiatives aimed at giving a fresh impetus to the renewable energy sector, three are noteworthy: Allowing large scale domestic manufacture, a long-term policy to purchase power; and R&D support to reduce material consumption and improve efficiency. The solar mission is among the 8 national missions that comprise the National Action Plan on Climate Change.

The solar PV market is growing quite fast and indeed has enough scope for new players to enter. The market now has over 30 state-of-the-art PV module and cell suppliers. " The aggregate module production capacity rose from less than 60 MW in 2005 to more than 1 GW in 2009, setting India up as a possible major manufacturing hub for the global solar PV market," according to a fresh analysis done by research firm Frost & Sullivan. The aggregate module production capacity in the market was 972 MW in 2008 and is estimated to reach 2,575 MW in 2015, it says.

Under the National Solar Mission, the government aims to install solar generation capacity of 20,000 MW by 2020, 1,00,000 MW by 2030 and 2,00,000 MW by 2050. The government has estimated that the funding required for this will be anything between Rs 85,000 crore and Rs 105,000 crore. “The government is mulling to raise funds for the solar program to Rs 12,000 -15,000 crore under the 12th Five Year Plan,” says a story in DARE on Solar Photovoltaic Cells, quoting an IREDA official. By 2022, the government aims to install 20 million square meter solar thermal collectors in the country and save about 7,500 MW power generation capacity.

The good thing is that the government wants 20 million solar lights to be installed by 2022, which could save about 1 billion litres of kerosene every year. Are you ready to make the most of this opportunity?