Rama Krishna Sangem
“Prime Minister Surya Ghar” scheme announced by the union cabinet on February 29, Thursday is intended to achieve three benefits in one go. This ambitious and massive scheme is not new in its nature, but this can be described as the biggest one to promote solar energy in India at the national level. There are several schemes earlier at the central and states level, but this is with clear targets and layouts.
PM Narendra Modi has been pushing for massive scale up in infrastructure in the country. That includes energy capacity too. But, he has another goal in the energy sector – to ensure clean energy and cut carbon emissions completely by 2070, a target to which India is committed at the global level. Solar power is a major source of this energy sector strategy. This latest push of Surya Ghar is a vital part of that.
The three advantages this Surya Ghar are: One, to increase the share of solar power in the overall energy production in the country. Two, to ensure clean atmosphere – by cutting carbon emissions drastically. Three, to promote indigenous solar power equipment industry on a large scale. These three goals are interlinked with each other in this Surya Ghar scheme.
1 core houses will bring change
The target of Surya Ghar to fix solar power panels on rooftops of as many as one crore houses in the country in next four years will be a major game changer. Now imagine, the rapid solar electrification of homes due to the subsidy offered by the centre to a tune of 60 per cent on solar plants up to 2 KW and 40 per cent on those of above 3 KW in the coming years.
This will trigger ripple effects on Indian economy. First, the centre has estimated that it would save up to 30 Gigawatts (one GW is equal to 1,000 MW) of power currently used by the households. Second, it will reduce carbon emissions by about 70 crore tonnes in the coming 25 years, this is a clean energy. Thirdly, the installation of these many solar panels on rooftops of around one crore homes will boost local industry.
It is estimated t hat a solar panel plant of 2 KW will cost around Rs 1.20 lakh and the same of 3 KW is Rs 1.45 lakh. So, this much of amount will come to the solar panel industry in the next four years. On an average, around Rs 1.30 lakh crore of work orders will come to the solar industry. This will not only encourage growth of local industry, but also create new jobs. At the same time, household can save huge monthly power bills and repay the loan components too.
China model
This is nothing but following China model. China currently dominates solar power industry. Entire world depends on it for import of solar power batteries and panels. India has to import solar power panels from China now as they are cheaper, compared to the locally made ones. But, if the bulk orders come, the cost of panels made in India too will come cheaper. This Surya Ghar scheme will achieve this goal of placing bulk orders for solar industry.
