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: nominal expenses on operation and maintenance, low interest and liberal depreciation charges, keeps cost per unit within the Rs13-20 per unit range, depending upon subsidy and rate of interest, against Rs 4 for conventional grid power that includes the high cost of fuel. The cost of SPV will fall further by about Re 1 considering its eligibility for CDM benefit under the Kyoto Protocol.
For an SPV system that accounts for 1% of the country’s power system network comprising nearly 1,32,000 mw of installed capacity and 1,00,000 mw peak demand, it will be necessary to set up an SPV-GCS of about 130 mw. This will be feasible only with a capital grant or soft loan, or both, besides reasonable feed-in tariff so that entrepreneurs can expect payback within a reasonable period. Feed-in tariff will be three to four times the normal, but it will result in a very minor impact in the overall tariff structure considering total generation from SPV at PLF of about 40% of thermal power and only one-tenth in installed capacity.
The tariff rise will be close to only 1%, which can be shared by the grid utilities and the consumer, to be decided by SERCs. The implications of reducing the cost of SPVs and, thereby, arresting greenhouse gases, are few—but the significance is great. These are attempts, which, in due course, will be tantamount to bringing down the cost of solar power to affordable levels in a decade or so.
Globally, in the installation of 135 gw of renewable energy resources, 7 gw is SPV power, which represent about 2%. In India, out of 10,000 mw (10 gw), SPV-GCS is only 3 mw or 0.03%, which only reflects our backwardness in this field. In wind power, on the other hand, India is the 4th largest global player with 7 gw (7,000 mw) or 9% of world installation of 80 gw. The country is progressing fairly well by advancing overall growth of renewable energy resources to 25-30%, except for grid-connected SPV systems.
The main obstacle to SPV systems is the high cost of finance and imported solar cells, the main ingredients to making modules/arrays and which constitutes 65-70% of the SPV-GCS cost. By setting up manufacturing units in the country based on advanced technology, this problem can be substantially eased. Research on developing cheaper solar cells is progressing. Internationally, there is gap between supply and demand, which is a key factor...
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