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Themes in this post: Infirmness of solar power | Poor performance in manufacturing | Offgrid solar | Solar CSP | Solar panel waste | Ecosystem effects

Some estimates suggest that India will need about 6000 TWh of electricity by 2050 (in 2024, it was about 2000 TWh).

Imagine if all this electricity were to be generated by solar power. This would need about 4 TW of solar power plants, and possibly about 15 TWh of batteries.

We are talking about 20 million acres of land for solar panels alone – about 5% of total agricultural land area of India! Of course, solar will contribute only perhaps 50% of the total electricity – even then, that would be about 3% of total arable land in India.

Depending on who you are, 3% is either a reasonable or a high fraction! Quite an acceptable number if you are a large landlord who might have to forsake a small % of his total landholding to solar. A lot if you are a small farmer holding less than 4 acres of land, in which case a single MW of solar plant will take over all your land!

Besides large amounts of land required, trillions of liters of water needed to clean a few billion solar panels by then. These will be accompanied by tens of millions of battery units all of which need maintenance and more important from an environmental perspective, a sustainable end of life management.

While solar power we get is green and low carbon, the ecosystem mess that a TW scale solar power ecosystem would have created could be quite a mess to deal with.

Nothing is perfect. Solar power is no exception. What was illustrated above is something we could face a decade or two later. But there are current challenges as well. So, let’s look at each of these challenges in detail.

Infirmness of solar power

Solar power is inherently intermittent and variable, presenting significant challenges for its consistent deployment and integration into the energy grid. This “infirmness” refers to the fluctuating availability of solar energy, which varies throughout the day and across different seasons.

This variability poses challenges in balancing supply and demand on the grid. During peak demand periods, such as late afternoon, solar generation may decline, leading to potential imbalances. Conversely, during periods of high solar output, excess energy must be managed to prevent grid overload.

This is besides the simple fact that there is no power generated from the solar panels at night.

The intermittent nature of solar power is something inherent in it. As long as solar power generation remained on the fringes and accounted for a couple of percentage points, no one was unduly worried. But as the contribution of solar power increases beyond 10% (right now it is about 6%) and starts inching toward 20% or higher, such infirm injection of power into the grid can result in serious problems to an infrastructure that was built to handle fairly steady electron flows.

See the section on Making solar firm in the post on Getting to 500 GW Solar to learn about solutions available to deal with the infirmness challenge.

Poor performance in manufacturing

India has so far disappointed in solar PV manufacturing and the sector is still highly reliant on China

Infirmness of solar power is something that is a fundamental nature of solar power, but there are some challenges which are not so fundamental. One of them is India’s poor performance is manufacturing of the gear required for solar power plants – polysilicon, cells, modules, balance of systems…

As of mid 2024, India had a total manufacturing capacity of about #H80 GW for solar modules#H and just about #H8 GW for solar cells#H. Module manufacturing is a low investment, low value addition game (essentially, an assembly operation). The key value adding part of the value chain is the fabrication of solar cells. In this, India’s share of total global manufacturing capacity as of mid 2024 was less than 1%.

India’s solar cell manufacturing capacity was only about 30% of the total solar PV capacity installed in the country during 2024 – about 25 GW. A large portion of the solar cells are still being imported from China.

India still relies on #Himports for over 80% of cells and modules#H, with most imports coming from China. This dependency highlights India’s limited domestic production capacity for critical solar components.

Equally concerning should be the fact that India currently produces almost nothing in the upstream segment of solar PV – polysilicon, ingots and wafers. While large industrial groups such as Tata, Reliance and Adani are investing in the upstream portion, it is still early days to say whether India will be able to hold its own in future in the critical upstream segment. If we are not able to, we will still be reliant on China for the inputs (wafers) to produce the tens of GWs of cells and modules the country has invested in producing- not a pleasing prospect, you will agree.

See the section on Strengthening solar manufacturing in the post on Getting to 500 GW Solar to learn about solutions available to deal with the infirmness challenge.

Offgrid solar

India has not been able to realize the full potential of offgrid solar to provide significant benefits to the rural, remote and bottom of pyramid segments of the population

Solar PV presents significant promise for providing electricity and its concomitant benefits to millions of people in rural and remote regions in India that still have quite patchy power supplies from the grid. Offgrid solar solutions can be leveraged to provide green power to significantly enhance the quality of lifestyle of these folks.

But India has done quite poorly on the offgrid solar sector.

The relatively high upfront cost of installing off-grid solar systems for rural and poor communities remains a major barrier to their widespread adoption in these regions and segments. Though there is strong government intent accompanied by various subsidies, financial accessibility for solar power still remains a concern for rural communities, where the capacity to make initial investments is limited. Part of the reason for offgrid solar’s high cost is the need for batteries. As offgrid solar has no backup power from the grid to stabilize the infirm nature of solar power, batteries are a must.

In many cases in rural and remote areas, maintenance of off-grid solar power systems has been a significant challenge, especially as these need batteries to operate, and batteries, unlike solar panels, need to be maintained with more care, and also need to be replaced every few years. With limited technical support from installers, these regions have seen many offgrid solar power generation kits such as solar street lamps, lanterns and residential power packs gather dust after a few months of operation.

Solar CSP – a non-starter

Solar CSP has been a non-starter in India, as it has been in the rest of the world.

Power generation in India through the solar thermal route (CSP) has practically stalled.

Despite early investments in CSP, India has been slow to scale up its CSP capacity. By 2023, India’s total CSP capacity still contributed only a miniscule fraction to the overall solar energy and solar power mix. The government had set ambitious targets for CSP, particularly in regions like Rajasthan and Gujarat, where solar radiation is most intense. However, the few CSP installations have done poorly and many of them are not even operational.

Several challenges and issues have contributed to the poor growth of CSP power generation in India.

One of the most significant barriers to CSP growth is the high upfront capital costs. CSP plants require substantial investments, not only for the technology itself but also for infrastructure such as land, storage, and transmission. Unlike the dramatic cost reductions seen in solar PV, solar CSP has not seen any much reductions in upfront costs, which still remain formidable. Given that CSP is still a developing technology (solar PV can be considered relatively far more mature), investors remain cautious, and the long gestation periods for these projects create additional financial uncertainty.

Another key factor limiting the growth of CSP is the complexity of the technology. CSP systems are technologically more advanced than traditional photovoltaic systems, and they require sophisticated infrastructure for energy storage (such as molten salt storage). The operation and maintenance of CSP plants also require specialized skills and a steady supply of parts and materials, which adds to operational costs. As a result, CSP plants often struggle to compete with the faster, cheaper deployment timelines of PV solar. 

Overall, CSP has faced tough competition from photovoltaic (PV) solar energy. PV systems, which have lower upfront costs, quicker installation timelines, and decreasing costs due to technological advances, have emerged as the dominant player in India’s solar energy market. The rapid rise of PV systems has overshadowed the development of CSP, leading to a global shift in focus away from CSP technology.

Perhaps because of the above reasons, India’s policy landscape for CSP has been pretty much blank. After some early enthusiasm for CSP, Indian policy makers quickly shifted to put their entire focus on solar PV.

Most of the developed #HCSP projects in India are inoperational#H. Out of the total CSP capacity of 329.5 MW installed during the initial years, only 101 MW of CSP plants are operational as of now – as of mid 2024, this comprises only 3 projects, two of 50 MW each and a 1 MW solar CSP project.

Will Solar CSP in India, and globally, take off? Tough to see this happening anytime soon.

Land & water requirements

Land requirements

Large-scale solar farms require extensive land areas to install numerous solar panels, #Halmost 4 acres for each MW#H of capacity. This extensive land use can compete with other critical land needs, including agricultural activities and urban development.

Many states are making it easy to have solar power plants on agricultural farms through simpler procedures to convert agricultural land for installing solar power plants. In some cases, this indeed could have benefitted farmers who were looking at pivoting from farming.

But not always.

In Gujarat and a few other states, several solar parks have faced opposition due to the conversion of agricultural and grazing land for solar park development.

To minimize conflicts, strategic land allocation is essential. Identifying suitable areas for solar farms that do not interfere with agricultural or grazing land and other sensitive ecosystems can help balance the expansion of solar energy with land conservation needs.

Water requirements

Solar power plants are already facing water stress in select regions.

It could require up to #H3000 liters of water for a MWh#H, which is in fact similar to water requirements of a closed loop coal power plant! Water is mainly needed for cleaning of solar panels.

In regions like Karnataka, where water availability is limited, water requirements for maintaining solar farms pose significant sustainability concerns. Traditional water-based cleaning methods can exacerbate water scarcity issues. To address these challenges, some solar farms in Karnataka have adopted dry, waterless cleaning systems and robotic technology. These innovations reduce the dependency on water for panel maintenance, thereby mitigating the impact on local water resources and ensuring more sustainable solar operations, but they are quite expensive and I doubt automation alone can solve solar water challenge for India’s large-scale solar farms.

Solar panel waste

A 1 MW solar power plant contains about 2500 modules. Even factoring the increasing wattage of modules, a 300 GW installed capacity for solar PV by 2030 will mean close to a #Hbillion solar panels#H. Just visualize that for a second – a billion solar panels. Starting 2035, solar power plants will gradually start nearing their end of lives, and we will be staring at the big problem of solar panel waste.

That will comprise humongous amounts of glass, plastic, metal and of course semiconductor material. How do we dispose of these? Is it possible to recover all the materials to make it circular? If not, could a green power with less air pollution on one side result in an ocean of land pollution on the other?

Currently, there are no complete answers to solar panel end of life management. Yes, there are solutions emerging that claim to recover most of the components in a solar panel in a sustainable manner, but we are yet to see large scale solar panel waste managed in such a manner anywhere in the world. 

Other ecosystem effects

Most large solar farms will be installed in non-urban and possibly rural and remote areas, precisely the same regions where many nature, wildlife and biodiversity habitats are present too.

Large solar farms can alter land use patterns, leading to the disruption of wildlife habitats and local flora. In regions like Rajasthan and Gujarat, transmission lines from solar farms have affected the habitats of critically endangered species such as the Great Indian Bustard. These disruptions have led to legal challenges and the need for mitigation measures to protect biodiversity. Efforts to bury transmission lines and create wildlife corridors are being implemented to minimize habitat fragmentation and protect local biodiversity. 

Construction and operation of large solar farms can lead to soil degradation, particularly if proper land management practices are not followed. This degradation can reduce soil fertility and negatively affect local agriculture.

Production and disposal of solar cells involve chemicals and materials that can cause pollution if not managed responsibly. Ensuring proper recycling and disposal methods is crucial to minimize environmental harm.

Way forward for challenges

It is not impossible to overcome any of the challenges. Even inherent challenges such as the infirm nature of solar power can be overcome through the use of effective storage solutions.

It is more a question of time. Many of the possible solutions will take time to be designed and tested and implemented. The timeframe for some of these (such as long duration energy storage) to mature, economical and be applicable at scale could even be a decade or more. For challenges such as biodiversity and ecosystem effects of large scale solar farms, more time might be needed for the environmental experts to really understand the results.

But solar power plant installations in India and a few other countries are happening at such a pace that many of these challenges will be looming large in front of us before the feasible solutions can take care of them. This could be the real challenge.

More details on solutions available to overcome challenges can be seen in the post on Getting to 500 GW Solar .