Financial Express: Fight climate change with green energy. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has emphasised on the need for incorporating renewables in the energy matrix for climate change mitigation and for reducing greenhouse gasses. India’s national agenda on climate change is to reduce carbon emissions by 25% by 2020 in tune with its Copenhagen commitment.
The renewable energy agenda is now part of the developing world strategy. Nearly half of the renewable power capacity is in the developing world. Renewables have played a major role in the revival of economies and creation of jobs, apart from augmenting energy security for the overtly fossil fuel-dependent economies.
Among renewables, solar is the most potent solution to meet this target. The focus area for many a nation and corporation is initiatives that make national and global economies greener through renewable energy. More than half the GHG emissions are from power stations, industrial processes and the transport sector.
India is endowed with vast solar energy potential; 5,000 trillion kWh per year energy is spread over India’s land area, with most parts receiving 4-7 kWh per sq. m per day with an average of 5.5 kWh, along with 300 clear sunny days in most parts of the country. Hence India can use solar PV and solar thermal technologies to provide huge scalability for solar power in India. Solar also provides the ability to generate power on a distributed basis and enables rapid capacity addition with short lead times.
PV solutions
Solar PV is one of the most talked about emerging technologies amongst the renewable energy solutions that can combat the adverse effects of climate change. Unlike most other forms of electricity production, PV is effectively limitless as long as the sun is available. The life span of an installed PV module is expected to be in excess of 25 years. Tata BP Solar has significant strengths in this sphere, thanks to its state-of-the-art PV technology, system design, engineering and construction abilities.
An increasing appetite for solar adoption by commercial establishments, manufacturing and corporates has been witnessed in recent times. There are policies which actively encourage usage of solar power in areas like telecom towers, railways, highways, etc. Emissions can also be reduced through wide-scale deployment of solar traffic lights, rail signals, and innovative applications like solarised ATMs and charging stations for E-bikes.
A green-savvy company successfully integrates the issue of climate change in its business strategy and does not treat it as one of the many issues. Climate change is still in its nascent stage, and it therefore pushes companies into an unexplored territory. This needs a new business approach, and companies need to look at products and services from a life-cycle perspective. Carbon audits and benchmarking to international standards are a must. This will help companies find out how they compare with others within the country and across the world in their sector or within a product range. The optimistic scenario suggest that carbon emission can be reduced from 5.2 billion tonnes with a coal dominance scenario in the power sector to around 3.6 billion tonnes with greater reliance on renewable sources, energy efficiency improvement and demand side management.
By: K Subramanya, who is the CEO, Tata BP Solar
