India's PV solar energy market set to zoom
Published on February 10, 2010 at 22:05
commodityonline.com
DUBLIN (Commodity Online): Remarkable solar irradiation, government ment committment for installing 20,000 MW of cumulative solar power by 2020, presence of a photovoltaic production hub will lead to India becoming one of the world'slargest photovoltaic solar energy markets in due course, according to a report, 'The Indian PV Market' by Research and Markets.
The country has the best solar resources in the world. In November 2009, India announced The National Solar Mission targeting 20,000 megawatts of cumulative installed solar power by 2020. This Mission includes a feed-in-tariff system comparable to incentives that boosted leading PV markets such as those of Germany, Spain, and Italy. This, combined with the country's remarkable solar irradiation, could lead to a quick boom in the Indian PV market.
India already has the worlds best solar resources, and solar energy could offer a solution to a country still struggling heavily with continuous electricity shortages, the report said.
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Cumulative installed solar power in India is 110 MW, and in 2008 only 3 MW were added. An average year-on-year growth of 68% will be needed to reach the target of 20,000 MW by 2022, the majority of this coming from grid-connected projects. This growth scenario would appear to be feasible within the context of the proposed incentives. Based on this target, India will change from a production hub into one of the largest PV markets in the world. The angle of greatest interest regarding the Solar Mission is not only that it will provide clean and safe (solar) electricity to millions of people, but that it will also create tens of thousands of jobs at the same time.
Over the next three years, India's PV market volume is forecast to grow to more than 600 MW in a Business-As-Usual scenario and to 2250 MW in an accelerated growth scenario. The cost of solar electricity generation is expected to fall significantly from INR 12 to INR 8 per kWh within a span of 10 years (2008 to 2017), while grid electricity prices are expected to rise to around 8 INR by 2015. Based on these forecast developments, India has the potential to reach grid parity between 2017 and 2020. (Businesswire) |
