Sun has always been a inseparable part of Indian mythology since the beginning of time, it has been an eternal source of power. Today it is all set to play the same role in a new “Avatar”, but God has provided us mortal mind to question even GOD himself; Let us take a look at some of the Myths about Solar Energy and answer some basic questions;
Myth 1:
Solar energy generation is only possible at places with abundance of sunshine.
FACT:
Sun being GOD (as we perceive it) does not discriminate, its energy is the most evenly spread source of energy, it is just about every, we just have to point in the right direction, the most glaring example is the world’s; largest solar market itself viz. Germany a country not particularly based in the “Sunny” side of earth, yet it is just because of smart governance that it continues to make the best of all the sunlight it has, in summer almost 10% of the household electricity in the south of Germany is generated by solar panels. Of course if you’re developing systems in barren lands having lots of sunshine like the Thar Desert, your ROI will go up by manifolds, now other factors will also come into play such as presence of a grid, local consumer electricity price, energy usage pattern, policies and much more, it would therefore be much more prudent to invest in solar in the North Eastern Part of the country and connect it to grid connection point.
Myth 2:
Solar energy is costly and needs government subsidy to become competitive!
FACT:
Well let’s face the list could just be endless; people should never buy television because radio is cheap, never buy a motorcycle ‘cause cycle is cheap, never buy a cell phone ‘cause landline is cheap, never travel in airplane ‘cause train is cheap,…… and we can go on till the cows come home. BUT over the years people have understood the advancements, the improvement in quality of life they make and steadily the market grew by leaps and bounds resulting in prices coming down to more and more affordable level due to mass production and subsequent innovations, no matter how hard you try to remember you won’t remember any govt. program encouraging people to come out and buy a cell phone, a laptop or a car but people have. Exactly the same thing is happening with solar also, in the past three years, the prices of solar panels have dropped by half, as a result of the introduction of large scale production methods. We believe that by 2013-14, solar energy cost of production will match the electricity produced from thermal and other conventional energy plants. Already world’s biggest markets are seeing a withdrawal of government subsidies as their markets are now coming of age.
Myth 3:
Efficiency of solar panels is still too low.
FACT:
Well we are just not looking at the big picture, what’s at stake is not the efficiency of the panel, but the price per generated kilowatt-hour, just as it is not important what is the cost of a SIM card is but the plan it bring with it. There will still be new types of solar panels developed, with improved efficiency, but the real success of solar energy in the future will lie in the good old “Large scale production” and the growth of the global market.
Myth 4:
Since they cannot work in cloudy condition or night, they are unreliable!
FACT:
Well this is very much like someone saying, “Let us not build dams ‘cause when water level is low we cannot generate electricity”. Solar panels will generate electricity even with low radiation; research is underway to develop panels that can produce current from even more range of frequencies of light (e.g. ultraviolet, infrared and low or diffused light) thus improving efficiency.
Solar energy is in fact a more reliable source of energy than the wind energy which currently is a bigger market, but solar comes with an advantage of much more flexibility options of installations and have no moving parts and hence no wear and tear. It is only a matter of time that sun over takes the wind; I guess all of us have read the story of “Sun and Wind” as kids where both set to do the same job and sun prevailing in the end.
Myth 5:
Solar panels take lot of space.
FACT:
This really depends on personal taste. Of course, there will always be people who believe a smoking chimney of a coal power plant is the best industrial technology and aesthetics. Other people don’t mind showing that they are generating their own electricity and therefore have solar panels on their roofs. Anyway, there will always be enough space on earth for all the solar panels ever needed. Mind you, only a relatively small barren area of 200 kilometers installed with today's solar panel technology would be needed to fulfill India’s entire electricity requirements.
On the second thought, does anyone remember the size of the first cell phone or computer when they were introduced?
