What You Should Know about Installing a Solar PV Plant in India
Updated: Aug 24, 2021
Energy being the need of the hour, India along with China and USA is pushing for solar aggressively. To prevent power crisis, all the countries are spending big in effort to develop alternative sources of energy. Awareness in Solar Energy has increased and its catching up with the more traditional yet renewable sources like wind power, hydro-power and bio-mass. The main advantage of Solar Energy is that sun available constantly and highly dependent.
If you are also planning to install Solar PV Plant on your home or Industry you should be aware of the following points:
Your Usage:
One obvious fact about solar energy is that sun is available only in the daytime thus you need to produce all your energy requirement during this period. A 1kW solar PV Plant in India produces on an average 4 units per day. This is very liner production, meaning you can just multiply 4 by the number of kW and and that will be the number of units produced per day for you.
Eg: If your requirement is about 600 units per day, it boils down to 20 units per day. Dividing by 4, 5kW size is the optimal system size which will help you offset all of your electricity bills.
Rooftop Area Required:
Solar PV Plants requires shadow free area at-least during the time frame of 10am - 4pm. If your roof top has no such free area, we can simply build a MS structure on site which will be customised for your requirement and help keep the panels in shadow free spot. 1kW p of Solar PV Plant requires about 100sqft.
Another important point is that the whole installation is quite heavy. A strong and robust roof is required to resist the weight, wind load and normal wear and tear of the system.
Which Solar Panel Should You Choose:
You might have seen there are generally two types of solar panels you might be seeing on rooftops of your neighbours. They are called are Mono-Crystalline and Poly-Crystalline. You can read in detail the differences between them here.
While Poly-Crystalline panels are cheaper, Mono-Crystalline solar panels are a bit more efficient than their counter parts (About 15-20%). Mono-Crystalline modules are used when there is shortage of space and the output power of the Solar PV Plant is important. As the temperature coefficient factor on Mono-Crystalline modules is less, they perform better even though there is rise or fall in the temperature.
The cost of Solar Energy:
Solar power bid as of 2017 on an average stood at INR 3.15/- as compared to INR 12.16/- in 2010. Falling prices of solar photovoltaic electricity have now made solar power the cheapest form of energy. In fact, available information estimates solar powered electricity to be 18% lower than the coal powered one.
Government of India, has tried to lower the tariff on Solar PV power price to INR 2.71/- kwh in May 2018. In fact installation of rooftop Solar panels have also witnessed a fall in tariff to INR 3.64/ if the components are 100% locally made. Though as per reports, this policy is not being implemented properly by MNRE if successful this might boost solar energy adoption rate. Solar power today is the cheapest form of power.
Government Support for Solar PV Plants:
In terms of all renewable energy, currently India is ranked fifth in the world with 15,691.4 MW grid-connected and 367.9 MW off-grid renewable energy based power capacity. India is among top 5 destinations worldwide for solar energy development as per Ernst & Young’s renewable energy attractiveness index[1]. With the efforts of the Indian government on making Solar energy a viable source of power, Indian government has resolved to make India, renewable energy efficient, through its National Solar mission. This mission is ambitious with an intended installation of 177 GW by 2022. This is a huge task and breaks down to installation of around 100 GW for that kind of power to generate. Of course, this is a cumulative of the all the renewable sources put together. Solar power is expected to contribute to 40GW via grid connected solar PV rooftop.
Our vision is to make India’s economic development energy-efficient. Over a period of time, we must pioneer a graduated shift from economic activity based on fossil fuels to one based on non-fossil fuels and from reliance on non-renewable and depleting sources of energy to renewable sources of energy. In this strategy, the sun occupies centre-stage, as it should, being literally the original source of all energy. We will pool our scientific, technical and managerial talents, with sufficient financial resources, to develop solar energy as a source of abundant energy to power our economy and to transform the lives of our people. Our success in this endeavour will change the face of India. It would also enable India to help change the destinies of people around the world.” - Dr. Manmohan Singh (2008)
Why Is Solar Energy Viable For India
It is gods gift on our geographical location due to which India has clear weather about 300 days out of 365. We receive about 5Pwhr energy in the form of Solar Energy which is significantly larger than fossil fuel energy production in a year !!
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