Share of Solar Power in India

The National Solar Mission of India projects the Solar Power generation capacity of 20,000 MW by the year 2020, to be increased to 100,000 MW by the year 2030, and further to 200,000 MW by the year 2050.

Taking into consideration the good sunshine in most parts of India for about 300 days in a year, about 5/6 Kwh energy can be generated per day by 1KW Solar PV. To generate 6.7 MU over 300 days (Equivalent of 1 MW Fossil Thermal-Coal), the daily generation will have to be 6,700,000/300=22,400 say 23,000 Units per day. Therefore 4 MW of Solar PV capacity (4000KW or 4 MW x 6Hrs),is required to generate the energy (KWH), equivalent of 1MW Fossil Thermal(FT- Coal).

The projection of 20,000 MW Solar power (equivalent of 5,000 MW FT) by 2020 may appear to be huge, but in absolute terms, it may work out to be hardly 2.5% of the expected total installed capacity of 200,000 MW by 2020 The projection of 100,000 MW Solar Power(equivalent of 25,000 MW FT) by 2030 may work out to be just about 3% of expected total installed capacity of 800,000 MW by 2030.

To increase the percentage of Solar Power in the total power mix, the priority needs to be given to "Solar Thermal", instead of focusing on Solar PV only in the initial period of the Solar Mission Plan and even Space Based Solar Farm at a latter stage.