Surging solar energy industry

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The political and environmental aspects have given a boost to the solar energy industry, as its demand has surged in the last few years worldwide.

"Globally, 2007 installations are around 3 GW and in 2010 it is predicted to be more than double. India right now has a very small percent of this but is likely to go up significantly as the central government is introducing new policies", says Jagadish Buddhavarapu, Vice President, Business Development, Solar Semiconductor Inc.

Solar power generation is done through various technologies. Crystalline Silicon wafers is one of them and is considered as the best because of its better efficiency rate than the thinfilm PV cells and CIGS etc.

Mr. K Vasudeva Rao, Executive Director, XL Telecom & Energy Limited says, "generation of power from solar differs, based on the technology and Crystalline Silicon is giving about 16% efficiency at the production level, while at laboratory stage it is about 24%, similarly is in the case of thinfilm, it is about 7% in the field, while at lab it is much better".

"While thin film has been in the market for several decades, the efficiency in the production level has not reached a stage where it is a viable alternative in the emerging solar farms usage for various reasons", Mr. Rao adds.

"Crystalline market share currently is over 90% and thin film is about 6-7% but will grow in the future", says Mr. Buddhavarapu. And, "in the crystalline PV, the trend is to go to thinner wafers and cells, so less Silicon is used and another trend is to employ metallurgical grade Silicon for wafer manufacture", he adds.

But generating cost of solar power is much higher than the other renewable sources of energy like wind and biomass.

Mr. Rao says, "cost of generating the solar energy is higher because of the availability of the Crystalline Silicon is low".

"Technology innovations and scale are rapidly lowering the cost to be competitive with conventional energy", says Mr. Buddhavarapu.

With the rising consumption of solar energy, its market is also increasing worldwide. India is also gaining ground at global level.