The difference between hype and performance in national
policy implementation is nowhere more visible than in the rooftop solar energy scenario
prevailing in India and Germany. Germany decided two decades back to increase
the use of renewable energy and in 2010 it legislated for a new programme
called Energiewende or energy transition which aggressively promoted the switch
to renewable energy with huge subsidies to wind and solar power generation and
heavy investments in research to make both more technically efficient and
cheaper to produce. A major thrust of this policy was to promote decentralised rooftop solar power generation with high feed in tariffs in addition to centralised solar and wind parks. As a consequence 32% of electricity production in Germany
currently is from renewable energy and its cost of production has become so low
that investments in coal based power has become economically unfeasible and is
now having to be subsidised instead. Nuclear power generation is even more uneconomical currently and all of it is to be
phased out completely by 2022. Not only centralised solar and wind generation
but decentralised rooftop generation also has contributed to this huge energy
transition that has become such a success that energiewende has now become a
common word even in English. The price in terms of a surcharge paid by the
citizens on their electricity bills which is given as a subsidy in the form of high feed in tariffs to rooftop electricity producers, is huge but
has been enthusiastically cheered by the citizens because they feel that this
is a transition worth making as they want to reduce Germany's green house gas
emissions to zero from the 2% of world emissions that it is now. Those who
first adopted roof top solar or set up solar plants on a large scale were
assured returns at high rates till 2024 to promote solar power generation. Even
though subsequently solar power costs have come down substantially and the
rates for new generation are much less, nevertheless the German Government has
kept its promise to pay the enhanced rates agreed initially to the first
movers. Thus, renewable energy has become mainstream with installation and
service agencies becoming common and the whole grid being optimised for the
fluctuations that are a part and parcel of renewable energy due to natural
fluctuations in wind flow and solar insolation over time. Despite Germany being
a country with comparatively less solar insolation it took a conscious decision
to promote solar energy and has now become the world leader in its technology
and implementation and has brought down costs and increased efficiency of solar power tremendously.
What is the scene in India? Given that this country is much
larger in area and receives much more solar insolation, we should have been the
pioneers in solar electricity generation instead of the Germans or at least
followed in their footsteps once they took the lead. While considerable movement is
visible in centralised production of solar energy through huge solar parks, the
progress in the sphere of decentralised solar energy generation is dismal. This
despite the fact that supply of grid electricity to rural areas is a loss
making proposition and has to be heavily subsidised. On the one hand the
subsidy being offered to solar energy is not large enough and it is not being
given as promised especially to the decentralised implementers and on the other there is the lack of an eco-system of service providers to make things work on the ground in remote rural areas. Thus, due to a
lack of enough solar implementers the ecosystem for solar power for individual
consumers is not building up and it is very difficult for such consumers to
pursue solar energy deployment. I will detail below the various problems that
we have faced in the implementation of decentralised solar energy that show that despite all
the rhetoric we have a long way to go in India.
We began by installing 500 Watts of solar panels in our
office in Indore to power the 1500 kva inverter cum battery system we already
had. So instead of charging the battery from grid power we began charging it
with solar power and also using the extra solar power after charging the
batteries during the day directly through the inverter. We had to add a solar
charge controller separately to the inverter and battery system. This charge
controller had to be sourced from a supplier in Bengaluru while the panels were
sourced from a manufacturer in Kolkata and the whole set up was installed by a
vendor in Indore. This system worked fine except that once or twice we ran too
many appliances on the inverter during the day leading to its burning out on
one occasion. However, since the inverter was from a well known company that
has a service centre in Indore it was repaired immediately.
After this we installed another 500 Watts of solar panels in
our field centre in Pandutalav village about 50 kms from Indore. Here we
installed a combined charge controller cum inverter sourced from a supplier in
Chennai to save on costs. However, the solar inverter had some glitch in it and
so it would not support loads of more than 10 watts or so. Since, the supplier
did not have a service centre in Indore the only option was to send the
inverter back to Chennai to be serviced. A detailed email was sent to the
supplier giving the details of the problem. Yet the supplier sent back the
inverter without solving the problem. So we had to send it back to the
supplier. Yet again the inverter was sent back without the problem being
solved. Eventually the supplier sent a new inverter as replacement because they
were unable to diagnose what was causing the problem in the one that had been
sent earlier. This meant a down time at the field centre of one month during
which we had to use kerosene powered lamps!!! Solar inverter technology has
become quite well developed and this particular company was using German
technology and yet there were problems. Due to the fact that the market for
solar inverters is not big enough, the companies selling them cannot afford to
have service centres all over the country unlike say cell phone manufacturers.
Neither has local expertise developed in repairing these inverters as in the
case of cell phones. So if there is a breakdown then getting the inverter repaired is a pain.
In the meanwhile the solar system we had installed in the school
at Kakrana last year had also stopped functioning. On investigation it was
found that the special solar connectors that are used to connect the panels to
the inverter had burnt out in the heat. So even though some current was coming
through to the inverter it was insufficient and so neither was the system
running nor were the batteries charging. Since Kakrana is situated 250 kms from
Indore it was not possible to immediately go down and solve the problem. By
the time the service personnel from Indore reached there, the batteries had
become discharged. So the batteries had to be brought to the nearest town 25
kms away and charged from the grid, the solar connectors dispensed with and the
panels connected directly to the inverter. Earlier also once the system had
underperformed because the batteries had not been topped up with distilled water
as is necessary from time to time. These problems that arose in Kakrana are the
standard ones that have plagued decentralised solar units throughout the
country for close to two decades and so currently we have thousands of panels lying
idle across the country because the connectors have burnt out, the batteries
have discharged and the charge controllers and inverters have malfunctioned and
there are no service personnel nearby, unlike in the case of malfunctioning of
the mainstream electric system. It is indeed a telling commentary on the mentality of the policy makers of this country that these basic problems have not been addressed and decentralised solar units are still being installed without providing a proper service eco-system.
Then we installed a net metering system in our office in
Indore adding another 500 Watts of panels to make it a 1 KW system once net metering was made functional in Indore. In net metering during the day the consumer
feeds the extra solar electricity produced into the grid while during the night
she imports electricity from the grid. In this way there is no need to invest
in expensive storage batteries. The consumer thus becomes a prosumer, producing
and exporting electricity to the grid during the day and importing it during
the night. If the prosumer is a net exporter then she gets paid for the
electricity that she has supplied to the grid at a tariff rate decided by the
Electricity Regulatory Commission. Unlike in the case of Germany this tariff rate is very small and equivalent to the prevailing wholesale rate for mainstream electricity. Theoretically this is all very nice but in
reality there are a lot of problems. The general employees of the electricity
distribution company are not aware about this policy but the ground approvals
have to come from them. Being used to bribes for any approval these employees
stall the process expecting bribes despite the top level policy push for roof
top solar net metering. Thus, the whole process of getting the approvals turned
out to be a tortuous one since we were not prepared to pay bribes and took a
few months to get through. Eventually, once the system was installed and
operational the problem of billing arose. The meter reader was neither
acquainted with the new metering system and nor was he ready to learn it when
we tried to explain it to him. Despite our system having been a net exporter
for the month for which the reading had to be taken, he arbitrarily reported
that we had imported electricity as we used to earlier. So we got an inflated
bill that we had to complain against. After this another person came to check
the meter and we explained to him the whole system as he was also not aware of
the net metering system. Anyway our bill got rectified for that month. Next
month, however, the same problem occurred again and once again we had to file a
complaint. This went on for a few months and now things have become better with
zero meter readings being recorded. The cumulative export into the grid is to
be paid for by the electricity company only at the end of the annual billing
cycle and not monthly. Even though one such annual billing cycle is over, there
is no sign of the electricity company paying us for the electricity we have
exported to it. Knowing that the electricity company is not likely to pay for
the exported electricity easily, given the huge losses under which it is running, I had sized our system in such a way that we
would export during the winters and import during the summers and overall be only
marginal exporters. We have fought with the electricity company and succeeded
in getting the bills rectified but in many cases the prosumers have not been
able to do so and are being slapped with the old bills in an ad hoc manner and
so are complaining that they are not receiving the benefits that were promised.
The capital subsidy that was promised on the installation cost has also not
materialised. Thus, the net metering solar roof top programme is not likely to
become a great hit in Madhya Pradesh if it is administered in such a slipshod manner. The situation elsewhere in India too is
not very encouraging.
Finally, we got round to installing a bigger solar system in
the field centre in Pandutalav village. The plan was to install a 1 horsepower
submersible pump in the borewell cum hand pump that was installed there.
However, sizing the solar system for this turned out to be a tricky
proposition. Even though the power demand was only 0.75 KW what was crucial for
designing the system was the electric current drawal by the motor. The pump runs at a
current of about 8 amperes but the initial starting torque is almost double
that at 15 amperes. Therefore, an inverter would have to be installed that
could deliver 15 amperes to start the pump even if the running requirement was
only 8 amperes. Given the way solar inverters work this would require a 3.5 KW
inverter instead of the 0.75 KW of power required by the pump. So not only would the
cost of the inverter go up but also that of the panels as a minimum of 2 KW of
panels would have to be installed to be able to supply 15 amperes of current. Similarly the battery storage required would also go
up from just two batteries to four. Since it was a waste of resources to
install such a system just to run the pump it was decided to use it for other
heavy duty uses also like running mechanical grinders, drills and welding
machines. This is the big problem with solar powered pumps as it is a huge investment that does not make economic
sense without a subsidy. In our case since the system was being installed with
grant funding there was a hundred percent subsidy. However, it is unlikely that
decentralised solar irrigation will take off in a major way in this country
without subsidy from the government. There is a scheme for providing 90 percent
subsidy to farmers for installing solar pumps but it is being provided to only
a very few farmers in a district every year.
Once again in this system also there was a malfunction
problem. I was away from Indore on an assignment when our centre manager, who
is only functionally literate, phoned to say that the inverter had stopped
working. By the time I came back ten days later and checked I found that the
charge controller of the solar power unit was not working. The batteries had
discharged completely. So I had to take the batteries in my car to the town
nearby and get them charged from the grid. After that the vendor in Indore and
I took videos of the various control panel indicators showing that the charge
controller was not working and sent them to the supplier in Mumbai. In the
meanwhile I used the original charge controller that we had installed in our
office in Indore and which had now become redundant after the installation of
the net metering system to charge the batteries and run the inverter and the
pump. The service person from the supplier arrived in Indore after a couple
of days with the replacement card for the inverter and not that for the charge controller.
After testing of the system it became clear that it was the charge controller
that was malfunctioning as we had informed them. Yet they had sent the service
personnel with the card for the inverter and not for the charge controller.
Eventually, another service person came with the proper card and the
inverter was repaired after a week of down time. If we hadn't had a spare
charge controller, then in the height of summer there would have been a serious
water shortage and we would have to draw water manually from the hand pump to
irrigate our plants as we had to do for a few days when I was away from Indore.
Given this kind of a discouraging scenario, the huge potential of decentralised rooftop solar energy is
not being harnessed in any systematic manner in this country despite a lot of
propaganda. It is both economically and practically difficult to implement
decentralised rooftop solar given the lack of subsidies and a functioning ecosystem in remote areas for
maintenance and repairs. Consequently it is only the committed people who have
some kind of grant funding who are pursuing solar energy and it is unlikely to
become a revolution like it has in Germany despite our country being much
richer in solar insolation and much in need of moving away from coal based thermal power given its adverse climate impacts and the negative social and environmental impacts of coal mining.
2 comments:
it requires but simple prescience to see the relevance of this abundant source of energy:strange that policymakers are unaware!
It's wonderful that you are getting thoughts from this
article as well as from our discussion made at this place.
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