¹ Energy & Wetlands Research Group, Center for Ecological Sciences [CES], ² Centre for Sustainable Technologies (astra),
³ Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning [CiSTUP], Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560 012, India

CONCLUSION

The study identified the solar hotspots in India using high resolution satellite data. It is observed that nearly 58% of the country receives annual average Global insolation of 5 kWh/m2/day which could help meet her escalating power requirements in a decentralized, efficient and sustainable manner. The solar power technologies like SPV and CSP have been discussed with focus on their techno-economic constraints of implementation. A major thrust for R&D in solar technologies is essential to lower the generation cost and enable a competition with the conventional fossil fuel based options. Solar hotspots in India have the potential to offset a huge volume of GHG emissions as demonstrated and help realize a low carbon economy at a faster rate. It will create numerous employment opportunities especially in the village level. Learning from other developing countries as well as its own past experiences, India can be a world leader in solar power generation. With an ambitious solar mission, and positively evolving policy instruments, the nation will rightly adorn the epithet of ‘Solar India’ in the near future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank NASA for SSE datasets for renewable energy potential assessment. We are grateful to NRDMS  division, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for the financial and infrastructure support.