Opinion & Analysis

While the Central and State Governments have taken several proactive steps to make it easier for solar developers to acquire land for their projects, land aggregation remains the single biggest roadblock in implementing large-scale projects, resulting in a slowdown in the industry.

The modernization and transition of energy sources towards environment-friendly options, jointly exercised with the capacity to conserve the proven available reserves, is an action fraught with foresight. The emergence of the future scenarios and how it will all play out in the long term remain unknown to the human consciousness. However, the foresight emanating through the intertwining of the collective consciousness of human existence shall undoubtedly provide us with a potent armory to articulate our response to the emerging scenarios.

The COVID-19 outbreak impacted the solar industry in terms of cash flow, payment collection from distribution businesses, working capital needs, workforce availability, and, most critically, supply chain availability. The government’s response to this situation was mainly positive.

The present system of the energy sector is centralized due to which the prosumer’s and consumers’ direct connection is yet to be formed. It’s due to persisting challenges like transaction efficiency, security and data transparency in the Indian energy market. The blockchain is a data-driven technology that helps create a very transparent process in data sharing among the peers involved in the system and sort out the challenges persisting in the energy market.

The global steel industry is poised to shift from coal to hydrogen. With enough high-quality iron ore and low prices for hydrogen, India could play a pivotal role in global steel decarbonisation given its large and growing economy.

Residential-based energy storage will become the new ‘Boiler 2.0’ and could form part of a virtual power plant, providing a viable solution to the global energy crisis and helping us to achieve our net-zero goals.

All stakeholders are expecting the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) to expedite and issue letters of award to balance companies that have bid under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for solar. Most players have already acquired land and some have even done the land development work and basic construction in anticipation of the award pending for the last three months. 

For real estate developers, now is the best time to install a solar energy system in their projects because solar rebates, tax credits, and incentives are at all-time highs. At the same time, a solar energy system may help them prepare for tomorrow’s specific difficulties while also saving money now.

With solar water pumps, farmers have access to high-quality power available for irrigation. These systems are portable and can be assembled at any preferred location. With the growing utilization of these systems, the costs have decreased substantially, making them an efficient, convenient, and cost-effective solution for grid-isolated rural areas. 

As India ramps up renewable capacity, there will be a higher requirement for substations, transmission corridors as well as battery energy storage. There is tremendous potential in technology localization in areas such as remote power monitoring, predictive maintenance, EV charging, green hydrogen, and energy storage.