Kashmir’s solar potential highest in India
Which is a better place for locating a solar power plant? Hot and sunny Rajasthan or snow-clad Kashmir? If your answer is Rajasthan, you are wrong.
A recent study by Indian researchers has identified the eastern parts of Jammu and Kashmir and the eastern part of Uttarakhand — in the chilly shadows of the Himalayas — as areas “with the highest potential for solar energy generation in India”.
Traditionally energy that can be generated from sunlight is estimated solely on the basis of the amount of solar radiation incident in a particular place.
But a new study says other parameters like ambient temperature, altitude, wind velocity and weather conditions tend to influence the energy generation to a great deal and therefore these factors must also be taken into account before selecting a place for setting up a solar plant.
The study by Tirumalachetty Harinarayana, director of the Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute in Gandhinagar, and Jaya Kashyap of the Malla Reddy Engineering College in Hyderabad is published Nov 17 in “Smart Grid and Renewable Energy,” an international journal.
“The combination of high altitude and low ambient temperature plays a crucial role in the efficient performance of the photovoltaic (PV) modules while wind velocity is a deciding factor in the energy generation process from the view point of heat transfer,” Harinarayana told IANS.
“Therefore, what the developers really require for choosing the best place for locating a solar plant is a map of solar energy ‘generation potential’ and not just the solar radiation map.”
The researchers have for the first time produced such a map for India by simulating the various conditions in a computer and have identified 286 locations with high energy generation potential in different regions of the country.
A more detailed map prepared for three states has identified 266 locations in Gujarat, 231 in Andhra Pradesh and 165 in Telangana.
Which is a better place for locating a solar power plant? Hot and sunny Rajasthan or snow-clad Kashmir? If your answer is Rajasthan, you are wrong.
A recent study by Indian researchers has identified the eastern parts of Jammu and Kashmir and the eastern part of Uttarakhand — in the chilly shadows of the Himalayas — as areas “with the highest potential for solar energy generation in India”.
Traditionally energy that can be generated from sunlight is estimated solely on the basis of the amount of solar radiation incident in a particular place.
But a new study says other parameters like ambient temperature, altitude, wind velocity and weather conditions tend to influence the energy generation to a great deal and therefore these factors must also be taken into account before selecting a place for setting up a solar plant.
The study by Tirumalachetty Harinarayana, director of the Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute in Gandhinagar, and Jaya Kashyap of the Malla Reddy Engineering College in Hyderabad is published Nov 17 in “Smart Grid and Renewable Energy,” an international journal.
“The combination of high altitude and low ambient temperature plays a crucial role in the efficient performance of the photovoltaic (PV) modules while wind velocity is a deciding factor in the energy generation process from the view point of heat transfer,” Harinarayana told IANS.
“Therefore, what the developers really require for choosing the best place for locating a solar plant is a map of solar energy ‘generation potential’ and not just the solar radiation map.”
The researchers have for the first time produced such a map for India by simulating the various conditions in a computer and have identified 286 locations with high energy generation potential in different regions of the country.
A more detailed map prepared for three states has identified 266 locations in Gujarat, 231 in Andhra Pradesh and 165 in Telangana.