A VISIT TO ABUI DHABI BRINGS A CALL FOR SOLAR IN INDIA

Abu Dhabi’s World Future Energy Summit (WFES) last week displayed more than Masdar, the principality’s awesomely ambitious zero-carbon city (See OIL MONEY TO BUILD GREEN CITY). In support of Masdar – and, clearly, because somebody in Abu Dhabi “gets it” – the nation is moving into the solar energy industry in a big, big way.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, pledged $15 billion toward New Energy as part of the Masdar Initiative that is building Masdar City. Above and beyond that, the zero-carbon city’s planning includes 180+ megawatts of solar energy installations. It is also funding a competition to find the most efficient solar technology presently available. The Masdar Research Network is funding research on a Japanese “state-of-the-art beam-down” solar power plant concept (see ABU DHABI, JAPANESE PARTNER ON BEAM-DOWN SOLAR) that promises to cut solar power costs from the present 16.48 cents/kilowatt-hour to 4.90 cents/kilowatt-hour.

Needless to say, solar energy producers from all over the world presented the best of their product, from panels to power plants, at WFES.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan's $15 billion pledge showed he is serious about New Energy. (click to enlarge)

A journalist from India, which presently has a mere 700,000 solar systems producing a paltry 44 megawatts (mostly for off-grid heating and lighting systems), came away with enough information to begin asking his countrymen why they are not getting behind solar energy when companies like Solar Millennium AG have 1,000 megawatt solar thermal power plants on the drawing board.

Solar power needs energy boosters
Jaideep Mishra, 31 January 2008 (Economic Times of India)

WHO
Jaideep Mishra, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi

WHAT
Times columnist Jaideep Mishra reports on findings from the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) and presents the case for expanding the use of solar energy in India.

click to enlarge

WHEN
- The World Future Energy Summit (WFES) was January 21 through 23.
- WFES presentations suggested solar energy will achieve “grid parity” with traditional sources of power within 5 years.

WHERE
- WFES was in Abu Dhabi.
- Global growth rates for solar energy systems approaching 50% are expected to drive economies of scale that will reduce system costs.
- To now, solar energy in India has been mostly for off-grid heating and lighting systems.

Revolutionary environmentalist architect William McDonough is doing it again with a radical new concept for Masdar skyscrapers. (click to enlarge)

WHY
- India’s current solar energy incentives are inadequate, Mishra argues. India needs more than a feed-in tariff. It needs to fund R & D.
World solar energy capacity by 2010 is expected to reach 8.25 gigawatts.
- Solar panel efficiencies are reported to have moved from 14% to the 20 to 25% range and are expected to soon be in the 30 to 35% range.
Thin film and solar thermal power plant technologies are expected to add to solar energy’s growth.
- Sharp Corp predicts it will have expanded from 15 megawatts of production to 1000 megawatts by 2010.
- The Masdar Initiative is financing a competition among the world’s 22 top solar manufacturers to compare solar panel performance, durability, cost and efficiency.

Most importantly, Masdar may inspire India to put its solar resources to work. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
Mishra: “The extant scheme to encourage R&D for solar generation seems much too longdrawn , bureaucratic and in any case providing for relatively modest sums. We surely need clear-cut fiscal incentives to boost R&D for solar power. Also needed is proactive policy to coagulate funding….”