GS – III Infrastructure – Energy

• The 2nd Global RE – Invest of investors meet and Expo hosted by the Ministry of New and Renewable energy, Government of India.
• Along with this India going to hoist first assembly of International solar alliance and
• Meeting of energy ministers of member countries of Indian Ocean Rim Association.

International Solar Alliance:

• To Provide a dedicated platform for cooperation among solar resource rich countries where the global community, including bilateral and multilateral organisations, corporates, industry and other state holders who can make a positive contribution

The Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA):

• It is a dynamic inter-governmental organisation aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and sustainable development within the Indian ocean region through its 21-member state and 7 Dialogue partners.
• India needs to shift her energy needs to needs to renewable for not only to achieve the SDG 7, affordable and clean energy but also reduce pollution and to achieve target of 100GW solar energy by 2022.

Challenges to solar energy production and Renewable energy as a whole:

• Infrastructure bottlenecks when we have great demand for renewable energy but we don’t have adequate infrastructure.
• To make renewable energy affordable, for this we need more investment for which ‘RE – Invest’ Platform paves the way.
• Land acquisition for the projects moves at a slow pace.
• Focus on R & D to reap the full output from the turbine.
• Identifying the geographical regions and to plan accordingly.

Issues with solar energy:

• Import: India imports most of the Photovoltaic cells from china and we don’t have manufacturer’s who can sell competitively.

Cost Per Unit:

• The Government is struggling to bring down the cost of solar tariff by Bidding but due to lack of awareness of solar energy benefits. Now by some measures the government of India has brought down the prices.

Storage:

• Even if the surplus of energy is generated we don’t have the capacity to store the energy.

Air Pollution:

• Due to excess air pollution, the dust particles block the solar panels there by reducing their efficiency.