Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Indian Solar Industry)

Why in news?

As India is making strides to fulfil its solar dream, Loom Solar (a Start-up) and its smart methodologies shall continue to provide the Indian solar industry with much-needed assistance for ‘Mission 2030’.

Installed capacity of solar energy in India has increased by more than 18 times from 2.63 gigawatt in March 2014 to 47.66 gigawatt in October 2021.
India’s current share of non-fossil sources based installed capacity of electricity generation is more than 40 per cent.
With about 150.54 GW of established renewable energy in 2021, there is another 350 GW commitment to be honoured by 2030.
Solar power is expected to contribute around 55% of the overall installed capacity of 500 GW.
Despite being the third-largest market for solar in the world, India still has a long way to go when it comes to the global solar landscape.

Despite a significant push by government for rooftop solar installations, India has not attained desired momentum because of rise in solar power cost.
The overall cost of ownership: The cost and GST have increased by 25% and 7% respectively in last one year. This has led to the breakeven being stretched from 7 to 8 years to another few years.
Underdeveloped DISCOM Ecosystem: Current DISCOM ecosystem is dependent on thermal electricity. Shifting it to the solar will affect the financial conditions of DISCOM.
Import dependency: India still imports the major components such as solar cells, modules, and solar inverters. This leads to loss of huge foreign currency every year. In the first 9 months of 2021, India imported solar wafers, cells, modules, and inverters worth $1.97 billion.
There is a lack of closer industry- government cooperation for the technology to achieve scale.

Import Duty: To promote local manufacturing under ‘Make in India’ mission, Government has imposing a 40% duty on the import of solar modules.
PLI Scheme: Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme has been introduced to boost India’s manufacturing capabilities and exports of high-efficiency solar PV modules.
BIS Certification: BIS certification has led to the establishment of higher quality parameters, which will also benefit the customers.

Under the rooftop scheme executed by SECI (Solar Energy Corporation of India), 200 MW of projects has been allocated.
SECI is offering 30% subsidy to the residential sector, private not for profit education organizations, social sector, and the health institutions.

MNRE has come up with a scheme to set up a number of solar parks across India, each with a capacity of almost 500 MW.
Under this schemegovernment is providing financial assistance to establish solar parks. The help is in terms of allocation of land, transmission, access to roads, availability of water, etc.

Viability Gap Funding scheme is implemented by SECI.
In the past few years, SECI has made multiple project allocations under the VGF mechanism.

Under this Scheme, financial assistance and capital subsidy will be provided to the applicant to the extent of 50%, 75% and 90% on the basis of the basic cost of the solar energy plant

The need for focused, collaborative and goals driven R&D to help India attain technology leadership in PV.
The need for a better financing infrastructure, models and arrangements to spur the PV industry and consumption of PV products.
Training and development of human resources to drive industry growth and PV adoption.
With solar panels and solar systems getting more efficient compared to their earlier generation, customers want to invest in such technology that will get them better output per square meter of the space they have.
There is a constant need to invest in research & development of more efficient solar ecosystem involving energy storage systems.
For India’s “Mission 2030”, startups have to come with initiative solutions.