A nation’s economic progress is directly linked to its access to energy sources like oil and gas, coal and of late renewable energy. The launch of the PM Suryodaya Yojana by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aimed at equipping one crore households with rooftop solar power systems, is an ambitious project. The idea is to increase the nation’s rooftop solar installed capacity to 40 GW by March 2026, after achieving an increase from 1.8GW in March 2019 to 10GW by end 2023 in the first phase of implementation of the plan. When the project was first launched in 2014, 40GW was the target set for the next ten years, but the forward push faced constraints. The present endeavour’s success depends on the effective leadership of governmental agencies in realizing the goal. The first phase experienced problems in relation to implementation as also sale of the excess power that households produce, over and above their use, to the Discoms. Red tape has a unique capacity to defeat well-meaning initiatives.
The energy sector has undergone revolutionary changes in recent decades. Renewable energy sources are being increasingly tapped, as in the case of wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower as also oceanic waves-based energy generation and even bio-energy production. So much so, waste from kitchens is now used to produce biofuel for the same kitchens. In fact, the reliance on coal-based thermal power had decreased when tapping of oil and gas-based energy sources increased. Thereafter began the age of renewable energy parallelly with the arrival of shale gas in the US; and now the production and use of electric cars. All these now pose a threat to economies based on the oil and gas wealth in West Asia. Nature’s renewable sources do not exhaust and the possibilities of their tapping are immense. The reliance on hydraulic power, once a craze, is reducing as dams are believed to be causing serious environmental disturbances.
Notably, Nepal was among the early enthusiasts in tapping solar energy with installation of rooftop solar panels decades ago, even as the mountainous nation had an abundance of hydraulic power. One of the first state governments to lay stress on renewable/solar energy in the country was Modi’s in Gujarat. Now, front-running states in use of solar energy are Rajasthan and Gujarat while the rooftop solar energy sector has Gujarat at the top and Maharashtra in the second slot. Notably, the Kochi international airport was among the first such entities to run solely on solar power. A constraint in recent years was the high costs of solar panels. Subsidies by the government majorly helped overcome such problems. This endeavour would have positive implications for motor vehicles too in the near future.
