Harvesting Solar Power in India!

This is particularly so when the current solar power capacity in the country has just touched 8000 MW by July end, 2016, and no country in the world has such an ambitious target as India has set out for 2022. On farmers' real incomes, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the recent past (FY2003 to FY 2013) has been mere 3.5 percent; and doubling these incomes by 2022 would mean increasing this CAGR from 3.5 percent to more than 12 percent. a significant progress can be made towards achievement of both of these goals, provided both are conceived and implemented in unison, a sort of marrying each other, with innovative policies- like the guaranteed feed-in-tariffs (FIT) for solar power generated on farmers' fields- to back this alliance. It should not be a difficult proposition as FIT already exists in case of wind energy, the scale of which is much more (27 GW) than that of solar power (8GW). Since the costs of solar power have come down drastically during the last couple of years, and now compete very well with the costs of power generation from burning coal, this would help generate clean energy in a cost effective manner as well as help augment farmers' real incomes. A true model of competitiveness with inclusiveness, and this can be scaled up in a sustainable manner. This will also help to reduce power subsidies of state electricity boards (SEBs), wherever solar power can substitute existing connections. [Working Paper no. 329].