Solar Days in Diu
How Diu has become
India’s first district where solar power meets all its daytime energy needs,
showing the way for the rest of the country
It’s a hot afternoon in Diu. The sleepy island, with
just over 50,000 people, is among the top 10 least populated districts in
India. And it shows. The beaches are clean and quiet. Waterfront promenades are
deserted — so are the markets. Even booze shops, which get droves of weekend
visitors from dry Gujarat next-door, are desolate on a Wednesday. But Diu is
much more than that — it is India’s first solar-powered island.
The secret lies in Fudam where a barren stretch of
land soon gives way to a silvery expanse. It is not the sea. It is layer upon
layer of solar panels glinting in the sunlight. This is Diu’s 9 MW solar park,
spread over 50 acres.
The solar park, built in two phases since 2016 and at
a cost of ₹62.48 crore,
is helping the district of Diu, part of the Daman & Diu Union territory,
get on the green map of the country. From importing all the electricity it
needed from Gujarat, Diu now generates power to meet all its day-time needs.
Solar now meets close to 30% of its daily electricity requirements.
Along with solar, Diu is also exploring wind energy.
By 2019, it prepares to set up windmills that generate 6.8 MW. When that
happens, not only will Diu be energy self-sufficient but it will also be
entirely from renewable sources.
Hemant Kumar, district collector, Diu, says: “Early
this year, we were picked as part of India’s Smart City mission. Renewable
energy is one of the many steps we are taking to get there.”
It was in 2012 that Diu first thought of solar power.
“We had certain obligations to install solar energy. Also, we had barren land
available,” says Milind Ingle, executive engineer, electricity department,
Daman & Diu. Further, Diu was spending ₹80 lakh a month to get power from Gujarat. Since electricity had
to be transported through 25-30 km of transmission lines, supply voltage was
affected. “Instead of 66 KV we only got 59-60 KV. So, dim light at homes was
routine,” says Ingle. The T&D losses, too, were relatively high at 12%.
The solar park has changed all that. T&D losses
have come down to 7%. Not only do consumers now get 66 KV but they also pay
less as the tariff has been revised downwards for all categories of consumers.
For domestic consumers (consuming 51-100 units) rates have come down from ₹1.80 per unit in 2016-17 to ₹1.17 in 2017-18.
The leap in solar technology has seen cost
efficiencies improving in a matter of years.
The foundation stone of the first phase of the solar
park, spread over 30 acres, was laid in 2014 with a capacity to generate 3MW at
a cost of ₹25.5 crore.
The project was awarded to the PSU BHEL. When Diu put out the tender for the
second phase in 2015, efficiencies had dramatically improved. While the
capacity, at 6 MW, was double the earlier one, the second phase cost just ₹36.98 crore and was spread over
a smaller land parcel of 20 acres. The foundation stone was laid in 2016 and
the contract was awarded to Indore-based Ujaas Energy Ltd.
Even the five-year operation and maintenance
(O&M) contract was cheaper — while it cost ₹1.57 crore in the the first phase, it was ₹1.5 crore for the much larger
second phase. “Technology and efficiency in the solar sector are improving
rapidly. While in the second phase we did get the benefits of economies of
scale. The efficiency of solar panels too had improved dramatically even as
costs and the land required were much lower,” says district collector Kumar.
Energy from solar parks is supplemented by rooftop
solar. Of the 119 government buildings in Diu, 79 have already installed solar
panels, generating 1.27 MW annually. The government is now encouraging Diu
residents to go for solar. They are given a subsidy of ₹10,000-50,000 to install 1-5 KW
of rooftop solar panels.
It is also planning to set up a 6.8 MW windpower
project — costing ₹51.6 crore and
consisting of four windmills — by 2019. “Solar energy takes care of our day
needs. For night, we still have to import from Gujarat. With windmill projects,
we will be self-sufficient in our energy needs. All of it will be green,
renewable energy,” says Kumar.
The Green Shine
A green energy wave is sweeping the world. Amid
concerns about climate change, rising pollution and a surging oil bill, the
world is embracing solar and wind energy and moving away from fossil fuels. The
world renewable energy (solar and wind) capacity is 9,41,581 MW — up from
5,45,005 MW in 2013 — and is expected to touch 17,17,000 MW by 2022. Developing
world, led by China and India, has been investing heavily in renewables.
Since 2014, when the NDA government came to power,
India has substantially scaled up its renewable energy ambitions. The renewable
capacity of India is 51,731 MW (solar and wind) more than double the capacity
of 22,498 MW in 2013. India’s ambitious target is 1,10,791 MW by 2022.
Diu is a model for India’s renewable journey. But not
every place has the advantages that it enjoys. “With a small population and
enough land, Diu is a perfect place to go for solar and wind energy for its
needs. This is fantastic progress,” says Vinay Rustagi, managing director of
renewable energy consultancy firm Bridge to India.
Diu’s solar journey is part of a global trend.
Islands, cut off from the mainland, often struggle to meet their energy needs.
They have to ship in fuel and depend on polluting dieselpowered gensets. Now,
Tesla is helping Kauai island in Hawaii build a 52 MW-hour solar battery and a
13 MW SolarCity farm. Similarly, Kodiak Island in Alaska fully runs its grid on
wind and hydropower. Cape Verde, an archipelago off Africa’s northwest coast,
has pledged to get all its electricity from renewable resources by 2025. In the
wake of Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan — constrained by landmass and dotted
with islands — is building floating solar park islands. In Indonesia, Abu
Dhabi’s Masdar is helping build a 200 MW floating solar plant. Dubai wants to
meet 75% of its energy needs from clean power by 2050.
Diu’s energy bet aligns well with India’s focus on
renewables. The country’s crude import bill is surging — from $70 billion in
2016-17 to $88 billion in 2017-18. The International Energy Agency says India will
see the fastest growth in energy demand by 2040 — which gives a growing urgency
to tapping renewables. An ambitious clean energy programme will also help the
country take a leadership role in discussions around climate change.
Solar race is on in the country. Jamia Millia
University in Delhi is going all solar by June. Villages in the interiors of
Arunachal Pradesh are being brought under solar grid. Last year, Piyush Goyal
announced that the prime minister’s constituency, Varanasi, will go 100% solar before
2025. Already, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, running mostly on diesel gensets,
has aspirations to go all-green in near future. Its plan has run into trouble,
though, as the solar tender awarded to Mahindra Susten last year has just been
scrapped. “Power generated by diesel gensets is not only the dirtiest source of
power but it is also the costliest. There are huge opportunities for India to
go for green power,” says Rustagi.
Quality Matters
Meanwhile, experts suggest caution: quality of solar
modules is important. “In India, there is lack of awareness of quality
components and some are skimping on quality, which may lead to lower efficiency
levels,” says Rustagi.
Diu, small and connected to the Gujarat grid, is
unique because both energy excess and deficit can be managed easily. “Diu is
small but is demonstrating the potential of renewables in meeting electricity
demand. However, this model has limitations for other regions,” says Shantanu Jaiswal,
head of research, Bloomberg New Energy Finance. For example, Andaman &
Nicobar Islands does not have grid linkages to the mainland and will have to
figure out how to manage energy variability (for example, solar can only be
produced during the day) and build some electricity storage systems or back-up
generation systems.
Today, 90% of solar modules are imported — mostly
from China, apart from countries like Malaysia and Taiwan. “The price gap
between Indian and imported modules has been high but narrowing of late. If
India decides to impose anti-dumping duties or raise customs, then imported and
domestic modules will reach price parity,” says Jaiswal.
The government must build strong linkages between its
green energy thrust and Make in India mission to incentivise domestic
manufacturing. Diu is just a start.
Malini Goyal::
ETM 8APR18
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