India's Solar Revolution: Small is Big

[wtmusic]

"A while back I wrote a post on the need to get India's solar boom right. I wrote it because it was obvious that solar energy was primed to take off in India and it was clear there were two paths the country could take -- distribute that boom to benefit the 300 million people still waiting for the grid, or forcibly centralize a resource that is most effective when distributed. Now a year later installations have grown at a blistering pace -- from 80 MW a year ago to over 1 GW -- but they are almost entirely centralized. As Indian states line up exciting new solar policies the central question remains: To centralize or not to centralize?

Let's start with hard reality: The grid is never coming to rural India. No matter what 'very serious policy-makers' want to believe, decades of attempts and huge gains in supply have yielded little increase in electrification. More importantly, off-grid solar installations have been dramatically cheaper than grid extension for a while because they compete with the huge costs of extending the grid and the huge costs of diesel and heavily polluting kerosene. That's why the future of rural electrification is decentralized clean energy something even the very serious IEA recognizes. "

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/compass/india/

[msongs]

1. rooftop solar NOT corporate whore solar - it is OUR sun and we should keep it under our control nt

[wtmusic]

2. Not to mention

it's a lot more practical that way, too

[2on2u]

3. Let's not forget what Enron did for India....

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-505913.html

Wisner joined Enron as a director of one of its subsidiaries after leaving government service, a move he said was common. "There have been hundreds of government officials…who have joined private companies after leaving their offices," he tells Simon.

The project went through, but last year, the plant shut down as India's state electric company could no longer pay Enron's bills. Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay demanded a billion-dollar bailout from the central government in India, even getting the Bush administration to set up an Enron task force to push the issue.

Those efforts bogged down after the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, the war in Afghanistan and the financial collapse of Enron, but there is still pressure on India. The current ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, publicly mentioned the debt two months ago.

Says Dhar, "To us, at the end of the day, it was one of the worst sides of American corporate culture we saw. We felt sad because we expected amazing standards."

[Nihil]

5. Nor what the US is still doing to protect their other crimininals from justice in India

Still protecting Warren Anderson - the CEO responsible for the Bhopal disaster that
killed between 3800 & 8000 people (maiming & injuring far more).

Justice? F*ck that, he's an American CEO so he can do whatever he likes to whoever
he likes and to hell with the consequences ...

[CRH]

4. Point of use is the only way to go with solar, ...

in rural situations. A tree five miles away doesn't leave you searching for matches in the dark. As well it encourages conservation of use and a more sustainable lifestyle.

[AverageJoe90]

7. That is definitely true.

We've already seen some progress in the Southwest, and here in the Plains with wind turbines. It's a decent start, but there's lots of potential for improvement, and, IMHO, much needed improvement at that.

[AverageJoe90]

6. It's a good start, at least.

We could use more solar, too. And there's plenty of room in the various desert regions of the country.

[NoOneMan]

8. Not to be confused with their even cooler industrial revolution

Thats led to about a 40% increase in emission during the last decade