Solar Energy Projects
Ever since the world has started taking notice of the global warming and has woken up to the dire need for saving up our natural resources, extensive efforts are being made to ensure we preserve our nature and its bountiful resources. With the focus now shifting towards a sustainable development, the governments of several nations as also the commercial and the industrial sectors have together come forward to shift focus from the exhaustible natural resources to the inexhaustible natural resources that nature has blessed us with.
Several reports reveal that our non renewable natural resources are getting extinguished at a very fast pace. At one point of time, we as a human race kept exploiting natural resources recklessly at a neck breaking pace. Without really being bothered about what it might lead to. Out of these non renewable resources, coal and fossil fuels were the leading resources that formed the basis of power generation. However, with time and development in modern science came the knowledge of this distinction between the two types of natural resources. Despite of several projects like solar energy project being undertaken to tap into infiniteness of solar energy and other natural resources; however, still there remain to be masses that are not aware about this concept forget about making use of these resources. Several people still do not know about unconventional resources. For them, energy still comes from fossil fuels and coal. Together we must gear up to spread this awareness in order to make renewable energy sources more popular and to regularize their usage on mass level.
While there are several natural energy alternatives, however two of the most common types of energy sources are the solar energy and the wind energy. There are several solar energy projects in progress across all parts of the world while many are still in the pipeline. These projects are being undertaken on several levels ranging from residential local level to commercial levels to the industrial level.
Several studies have revealed that India is one of the fastest growing nations as far as harnessing solar power is concerned. Another major factor that makes India stand out from the rest of the nations is that India receives high solar insulation every year. Solar insulation is basically the intensity of the heat falling on a particular surface of land. The more the solar insulation the high is the power generated from it. This high solar insulation is to be found across India in almost all the states. This is also true that unlike several nations where it remains overcast outside during most of the time in a year, in India it remains sunny during as many as two-fifty hundred to three hundred days in a year which is good news in itself. This can majorly be owed to the fact that India is placed on the equatorial belt. This suggests that India holds a lot of potential as far as harnessing solar energy is concerned.
Out of all the states, Rajasthan, Gujrat and some parts of Ladakh receive maximum global sunlight while Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and certain parts of Andhra Pradesh are some regions that although do not receive a lot of sunlight but they still do not even lag behind in receiving annual solar radiation. Solar power can be India’s asset in lighting up the entire nation. It can put an end to most of the foreign fuel dependence of India provided we invest extensively in some solar energy projects.
At present India has kept as much as 35,000 square kilometers of land in the Thar Desert for the solar energy projects. This is likely to help generate about 700 to 2100 GW of power from the planned solar energy projects in India. India had revealed in 2009 its proposed plans of generating 20GW of solar power through $19 billion solar energy projects by the year 2020. Also, it was disclosed that Indian Government is going to make it mandatory to use solar powered appliances in the government hospitals, hotels as well as in government colonies. Another major leap made by India in 2009 was the launch of National Solar Mission. This was one of the major solar energy projects in India which were revealed as a part of the National Action Plan on Climate in order to generate as much as 1000 MW of power by the year 2013.
However, when it comes to the grass root level and the energy being used in our homes, India still lags behind. India has as many as 324,607 illumination systems in the homes while the solar road lights are 55,796 in number. With a total of 1599 KW photovoltaic energy plants installed in India and about 560,295 solar lamps flanked across the nation, there is still a long way to go to popularize the solar appliances all through India. With retrospect to India’s potential for producing power from solar energy, these numbers are a meager count.
There have been several solar energy projects in India, undertaken by the government to popularize the usage of solar energy. India’s solar energy projects include the agenda to make solar lights accessible to about 20 million residences by the year 2020. This would help us cut down as much as 42 million tones of carbon emission in a year. The government of India is also planning to form a sort of solar energy count by investing about $1.1 billion in the project.
There have been several solar energy projects and measures undertaken to promote the rooftop solar photovoltaic panels’ installation in the government buildings as also in the residential colonies. The energy generated through these solar energy panels shall suffice the energy needs of the people living in these buildings while the excess power produced can be sold out, which would in the longer run become a source of money. Besides, the obvious advantages of utilizing solar energy, government also gives a lot of tax rebate to the people using solar based appliances which is an add on to the list of benefits.