India’s Solar Future: Why the Sun will Never Set on the Indian Subcontinent

Solar power growing at all-time high, not only in the global energy landscape, but also among other renewables. Recently, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has raised its global growth forecast for solar and wind power by another 25% since 2020, with solar likely to grow at about twice the rate of wind power to become the leading source of renewable power by the end of this decade. The IEA claims that India is entering a ‘solar-powered revolution’ that will edge out coal as the country’s top electricity source. Though solar makes up only 4% of the country’s power supply, it is expected to grow 18-fold and become the ‘King of India’s generation fleet’ by 2040, states IEA. If the story must be believed, India is likely to become a solar superpower by 2050. However, all is not as bright as it seems. Exclusive solar or wind power plants pose the below inherent challenges:

1. Renewable energy relies on intermittent sources for power—energy is produced when the Sun is shining or when the wind is blowing.

2. Energy production is restricted to a few hours of the day—how do we match peak demand at night?

3. Aging Transmission & Distribution infrastructure that are not designed to take power from intermittent renewable energy sources.
 

 

Renewable Hybrids are GameChangers
The energy industry knows that renewable hybrid power plants are the way out. But does India have the means to support renewable hybrids? A hybrid power plant can combine wind and solar with an additional source of energy generation or storage technology to manage demand round the clock. Solar power is likely to be high from 11 AM to 3 PM local time while wind energy peaks in ate evening or early morning. Considering that these sources cannot meet peak demand time in India, storage technology is crucial in the hybrid power bundle. According to a McKinsey report, a combination of solar, wind and storage can deliver stable round-the-clock power even at today’s costs of around INR 6-7 kWh. Though this is higher than the base load of coal plants, the levelized cost of solar energy is expected to fall to INR 2 in the next three to five years.
 

 

But now the million-dollar question is— how to manage a renewable hybrid behemoth?

With the surge in wind and solar PV installations, drone thermography, 3D modeling, robotic cleaning, energy forecasting and other emerging trends that assist with improving production, it has become imperative for power producers to leverage digital technology to maximize outputs.

The power of data-driven decision intelligence
Data opens a plethora of possibilities for energy companies to bridge gaps in asset availability, production, and O&M costs with data-driven decision intelligence. An adaptive and seamless predictive analytics platform would enable data integration and collaboration of parameters from any dependent sources and delivers value leveraging data science. For solar power plants, the industry needs power packed technology solution that can predict panel degradation losses, soiling and shadow losses, electrical losses such as string losses to increase yield and reduce O&M costs.

It is important that these platforms should be capable to include features such as panel degradation analysis, inverter degradation analysis, image recognition, energy & price forecasting, smart energy storage, maintenance effectiveness, soiling analysis and what-if business simulation forecasts. It is also important that teams using the AI platforms should work in tandem to ensure maximum ROI from such platforms. One such example among many is below”

• A case of cost reduction with cleaning optimization
If the cost of cleaning per cycle is at INR 2500/MW for a 1000 MW portfolio, considering 22 cycles per year, the cost for cleaning comes to INR 5.5 crores. Many plant operators clean the plant manually on a continuous bimonthly cycle, instead of a targeted approach based on the performance ratio (PR) fall for a block or section. Even reduction of two cycles of cleaning if achieved through cleaning optimization (enabled by AI), it will result in a cost benefit of INR 50 lakhs.

The budgeted losses can also be fed in at the start of the financial year and the platform can track the actual losses in real-time, identifying areas that require immediate intervention or change in approach. The platform should also average out the irradiation levels to the set benchmark so that independent power producers can clearly categorize the budget shortfall with respect to solar power availability.

Drone inspection for maintenance
Drone inspection has become a key requirement to manage park operations for zoning in on hot spots as against other reasons such as vegetation or bird drops are difficult to identify manually. Many images are processed by drone imaging, identifying panels that need intervention. Organizations should adopt solutions that seamlessly integrates with drone imaging software and store images to analyze the progress of hotspots in line with panel cleaning activities and validate them over a period.

Conclusion
With an air to leverage maximum benefits and optimize cost to increased efficiency, companies should focus on investments in solutions that compliment solar power generation. Technologies such as advanced AI platform, storage, drones etc will help solar generation asset owners achieve business targets and ROI much faster on highly competitive tariff regime.
 

- Lakshman Sutrave, Principal Consultant at Bahwan CyberTek