India’s green energy target can be the major point of discussion when, during this week’s end, PM Narendra Modi will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Delhi. Last year, Germany had promised a help of 87 thousand crore rupees to India for renewable energy sources. India has set an ambitious target of generating 500 gigawatts of electricity by 2030, from non-fossil fuel sources. Out of India’s electricity production capacity of 411 gigawatts, 121 gigawatts are produced from renewable sources.
But in this path of development, an obstacle can be found as well. By the end of 2022, India had developed a capacity of 63 gigawatts of solar energy production, and even though there was an increase of 14 gigawatts in a year, it is way less than the government’s target of 100 gigawatts. By 2030, out of the 500 gigawatts target, it has been proposed to produce 280 gigawatts of electricity with solar energy. Bu the shortage in the production is happening because of the lack of solar panels to be fitted on the terraces of the buildings.
40% of the solar energy will come from these solar panels on building terraces, but currently, only 8 gigawatts of solar electricity have come from such solar panels, which mostly have been produced by solar panels on office and factory buildings rather than on homes. There are a number of reasons because of which Indians do not put solar panels on their terraces. Firstly, in most Indian cities, there are reliable facilities of electricity supply. In the residential areas of the cities, things like water tanks and TV dishes are already there on home terraces, and programmes too take place on terraces.
House-owners construct extra rooms on the terrace as well, and most importantly, there is a lack of money for setting up small renewable energy sources.
One 5 kilowatt solar unit, which is sufficient for one home’s electricity requirement, costs 2.5 lakh rupees, hence, people are not inclined towards them. For this reason, the Centre and state governments are preparing to give concessions for solar panels on terraces. In Haryana, there is a provision to generate electricity for a part of newly constructed buildings from solar energy. In Jharkhand, it is being planned to provide subsidies for families with low incomes for solar panels on terraces.
