It’s a nice house with split levels, a sprawling lawn and an exposed brick façade. Yet you are reluctant to move into Gurgaon, despite all that the house — built after years of planning — has to offer. The problem, you know, is the erratic electric supply in the Delhi suburb. Just how will you cope with hours of outages which overwhelm the best of inverters?

Don’t worry — Manmohan Singh is looking into the problem. If all goes well, you may have, some years from now, solar power in your house that will take care of all your electricity woes. The government is all set to announce its National Solar Mission — an ambitious project that seeks to convert sunshine into energy. “It will be a game changer,” says R.K. Pachauri, who heads the Geneva-based International Panel on Climate Change.

For years, the government has been hard selling solar energy, tomtomming the effects of photovoltaic cells that harness sun rays. But even though the government subsidised the prices, a solar panel that turned cold water into hot, or cooked your rice and dal, still cost considerably more than a geyser or an oven. It came for anything between Rs 13,500 and Rs 18,500.

If the mission works, the cost of generating solar electricity will come down to the level of electricity generated from coal, which costs Rs 4-5 per unit. Currently, the cost of producing one unit of solar power varies between Rs 13 and Rs 17. This is expected to drop to a third of the sum because of technology changes. More volume would also mean a lower price.

LET THERE BE LIGHT: (From top) Children studying with a solar lantern; S.P. Gon Chaudhuri at the 2 MW solar power plant at Jamuria, Asansol; and the Moser Baer factory in Greater Noida

In the near future, huge solar farms spread over acres will come up — making solar energy commercially viable and therefore more popular. The grid-connected solar farms will produce electricity the way thermal or hydro power does.

Experts believe that solar power is one way of meeting India’s peak demand shortfall of 12 per cent. Not surprisingly, big and local efforts are all geared towards turning solar energy into electricity.

For instance, Pachauri’s organisation, The Energy Research Institute, is spearheading a campaign called Lighting a Billion Lives. The New Delhi-based group is working closely with photovoltaic companies to design and manufacture solar lanterns which can replace kerosene lamps in rural India.

Or take Yatendra Prasad Bhadola’s Aryavart Gramin Bank in Lucknow. In less than three years, the bank, where Bhadola is a senior manager, financed 27,000 standalone solar home lighting systems in six districts of Uttar Pradesh. The bank bargained hard with India’s leading supplier of photovoltaic products — Tata BP Solar — to reduce the price of the cells to make the lights more affordable.

For Rs 13,000-15,000, a customer can buy a solar home lighting system that will provide lights for 4-8 hours, and support a fan and/or a small black-and-white television set in an area where there is no electricity or inadequate electricity. If maintained well, it can run for 20 years.

Bhadola, who is in charge of solar home lighting loans, points out that the monthly loan repayment of Rs 245 (for five years) is less than the price of eight litres of kerosene (Rs 272) that an average household uses in the village. And after five years, there are no costs at all.

In neighbouring Bihar, Rajeev Sahi and his colleagues at the Patna Solar Centre are much in demand. Before a wedding, they are drafted in to erect a rooftop photovoltaic system in the groom’s house — a gift from the bride’s family. “It is a very popular practice among the rich in villages where electricity hasn’t reached,” says Sahi, who has installed hundreds of such systems in Bihar villages which can power a couple of low-consumption lamps, fans and a B&W television set.

But the government plans go beyond all this. The mission, divided into three phases, envisages that India will produce 20,000 Megawatt (MW) of electricity from solar energy by 2020, which is about 1/8th of India’s present power generation capacity. That will be five times more than the capacity of Germany, which is the world’s leading solar energy producer today. Currently, the total solar energy capacity in India is a mere 160 MW.

The plans are to use solar energy to power a series of houses or localities or even cities with the help of a grid. Right now, there is only one solar plant feeding electricity to a grid in India — and that’s in Asansol in West Bengal. The West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation (WBGEDC) set up the Rs 40-crore 2-MW plant earlier this year. It began feeding the local grid on August 20, says its managing director, S.P. Gon Chaudhuri.

Clearly, the journey from 2 MW to 20,000 MW in less than 11 years is an ambitious one. The mission, says M. Bhargava, director of the solar photovoltaic division in the ministry of new and renewable energy in New Delhi, marks a paradigm shift in the way India has looked at solar power till now. “Vast areas in the country’s sunny belt, particularly in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, will witness the coming up of solar farms with megawatt capacities. The main focus in areas where the sky remains cloudy and overcast for a good part of a year will be solar heating systems,” Bhargava says.

Meanwhile, states are unfurling solar energy plans too. Gujarat has said it will generate 500 MW of solar power by 2014. Andhra Pradesh has set up a city on the outskirts of Hyderabad with private partnership for solar energy. WBGEDC says projects for generating 37 MW of solar electricity will be commissioned in West Bengal by 2012. By the end of 2010, two solar power plants, each with a 6 MW capacity, will come up in Purulia and Bankura in the state. These plants are being set up by Moser Baer and Videocon, two Indian companies that are diversifying into solar power sector.

Once the mission, which is expected to cost Rs 92,000 crore over 30 years, gets underway, it will be mandatory for buildings such as hospitals, hotels and guest houses that occupy at least 500 square metres to deploy solar water heaters. All government and public sector undertakings of 500 square metres or more will have to install solar photovoltaic panels.

The environmental benefits of going solar are humongous. According to the mission document, India’s carbon dioxide emissions will come down from 1510 million tonnes to 1450 million tonnes annually if the mission is fully successful. India will also save 1.35 billion litres of kerosene and diesel every year once the plans get underway. This will mean a saving of Rs 4,000-4,500 crore annually.

The mission is slated to be unveiled on November 14, the birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s media adviser Harish Khare holds that the PM’s climate change task force has approved the mission “in principle”. A member of the task force, who does not want to be named, however says the government hasn’t placed the final document before the panel as yet.

There are other problems. Gon Chaudhuri says that unlike other energy forms such as thermal, hydro and nuclear, solar power is not cent per cent predictable. A cloudy day may mean a drop in power generation. To counter this, safeguard measures have to be put into place, he says. For instance, a particular plant may produce less solar power when the sky is overcast. So the shortfall would have to be met by a plant in a different region. A system will have to be in place to ensure that power flows automatically from one regional grid to another as and when the requirement arises.

Rajiv Arya, the CEO of Moser Baer, one of the largest memory disc makers in the world which started making photovoltaic systems a couple years ago, says if the solar mission gets under way there will be a huge jump in the demand for solar photovoltaic cells and modules. Moser Baer, which currently has the capacity to produce 40 MW solar cells and modules, hopes to increase its manufacturing capacity to 1,000 MW per annum in the near future, he says.

Devin Narang, chairman and managing director of the Noida-based Freepaly Energy Group, which manufactures solar lanterns, says solar energy is at last getting due importance in India. Solar lanterns, which can be recharged daily, are low cost options for huts and homes that have no access to electricity, he stresses.

The scope is enormous — nearly 400 million people in India do not have access to electricity, but only 5,500 solar lanterns are used in India today. “We have a long way to go,” says Narang who is also the convenor of a technology forum created to improve the solar lantern technology.

The journey is yet to begin. But it’s time to make hay — or power — while the sun shines.

Bengal Story

2009:

■ WBGEDC sets up country’s first solar plant feeding electricity directly into a grid at Asansol. The plant has a capacity of 2 MW

2010:

■ 2 solar plants with capacities of 6 MW each to be set up in Purulia and Bankura by Moser Baer and Videocon

2012:

■ Projects for generating 37 MW of solar electricity will be commissioned

alternative energy

Solar lantern

■ Capacity: 2.5 W — 3 W (one LED bulb is used)

■ Cost: Rs 2,200 for a no-frills model but with solar panel to charge the battery; Rs 3,500 for models with extra features like mobile charging facility

■ Hours of operation: 5-6 hours in full brightness mode. 7-8 hours in dimmer mode

Solar Home Lighting system

■ Capacity: Lights for 4-8 hours+1fan+1 small B&W TV

■ Cost: Rs13,000-Rs15,000 OR EMI of Rs 245 for 5 years. No costs after that unlike using electricity or kerosene