India, from the early 2000s, have realized the importance of climate mitigation actions and energy generation through renewable power sources. In 2010, Govt. of India launched National Solar Mission (NSM) under National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) to reduce its carbon footprint and upscale the penetration of solar technology in the country. Since 2014, India has come a long way in the installation of renewable energy (RE) wherein, the solar alone has grown by 20 times. Realizing the significant market potential for solar and clean energy transition, MNRE has also supported the uptake of heating and cooling applications through the use of concentrated solar thermal (CST) technology across various sectors via the implementation of off-grid and decentralized CST scheme.
India had set of itself an ambitious national target of 175 GW installed capacity by 2022 through renewable energy (RE) sources, which was further enhanced to 500 GW by 2030. As of May, 2022, India has achieved a total cumulative installed capacity of 113 GW (57 GW from solar, 41 GW from wind, 10.20 GW from biomass, 4.88 GW from Small hydro, and 0.47 GW from waste to energy) from RE sources. It is estimated that out of the total 57 GW solar, India has added a cumulative capacity of 10 GW from solar based power projects in FY 2021 in comparison to 3.2 GW in FY 2020 with a momentous growth rate of 210% respectively. Also, as per long-term vision of MNRE, cumulative target of implementing 15 million m2 by 2017 and 20 million m2 of CST by 2022 is envisaged and as on March, 2018, only 39 MWth of projects has been installed.
As per MNRE estimation, there is an overall potential of 140 million m2 through solar thermal collectors in India. Over the last 10 years, the market of CST technology has flourished and picked up the pace owing to the capital subsidies and ambitious targets set by India. Particularly, the process heating accounts for 56%, 33% for community cooking and 11% for cooling applications respectively. Hence, the CST technology offers a substantial potential of industrial decarbonization in terms of direct or indirect process heating and space cooling applications.
It is assessed that 74% (~85 EJ) of the process heating requirement comes from industrial sector, out of which 48%, 30% and 22% is used for high, low and medium temperature heating respectively. Taking into account the dynamics, it has been estimated that there is a market potential of 6.45 GWth CST in the industrial sector. The various pilot studies conducted under GEF-UNIDO project have also indicated that there is a simple payback period of 5-6 years which provides an economically viable option to offset the GHG emissions.
The CST is growing at increasing rates, but despite of its huge potential, only 1% of its potential has been realized till date. The following challenges and barriers are creating a hinderance for its mass uptake namely, (a) low or non-availability of technology and handholding support between domestic partners, financial institutions and international investors, (b) lack of research and awareness about the sector, which includes standardization of overall system performance parameters, (c) techno-economic viability of integrating CST with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) (d) non-availability of robust business models causing fewer investments, (e) non-scalability of operations and limited availability of system integrators, skilled installers, and resources, (f) limited supply chain access and lack of customized/ innovative financing to cater to higher upfront CAPEX, (g) lack of concerted action for mandating CST technology as in case of solar water heaters, and (h) space constraint for installing concentrated solar.
Keeping the tab on rising GHG emissions and climate change impacts, role and accelerated usage of renewable energy technologies becomes even more critical to transit from fossil-fuel based energy consumption as fast as possible. In light of this, G20 has always been at the forefront urging member countries and international organizations to reduce their conventional energy consumption and shifting their focus towards increasing share of RE in their overall energy mix. It is certain that as the Indian economy is growing, the industrial growth will further increase and it will pave the way to deploy the CST technologies in industrial sector more aggressively.
In context of the above, the G20 countries should draw a vigorous and detailed roadmap incorporating the components of technology development, capacity building, accelerating the supplier’s capacity on CST, R&D collaboration, strengthening policy and institutional framework, innovative financing and business models and market development for scaling up the technology etc. To start with, the roadmap should initially focus on technology demonstration and its mandatory implementation in some of the priority sectors or high potential areas. It should outline the focus towards technology improvement by creating benchmark standards and best practices guidelines on its integration in the industrial arrangement. The concerned stakeholders should be mapped along with actions outlined against each activity and associated timeline.
Moving forward, the next component in the action plan should be towards raising the global awareness on CST technologies, its application and estimated savings potential, since majority of the focus is centered only on solar PV. The effort should be through the engagement of B20 community to enhance the deployment of solar thermal technologies. It will help in creation of green jobs, and promises the promotion of system integrators, creation of industrial and stakeholder associations, developing international collaborations and conducting global events for inviting the foreign investors and technical players in knowledge sharing experience with the domestic OEMs/ vendors. In the nutshell, B20 community will help in establishing an inter and intra national partnership across the ecosystem of concentrated solar thermal technology.
To scale up and build the confidence, financial assistance/ funding support by G20 member countries, through the execution of assessment studies across various sectors followed by the demonstration projects with the replication scope should be proposed and implemented on a larger scale. For instance, to promote sustainable development in the industrial sector in line with SDG-9, one such program has executed by MNRE in association with GEF-UNIDO (2017-21) for scaling up the CST technology regarding process heating and cooling applications in manufacturing SMEs.
To promote the usage of CST, G20 alley should establish and mandate state specific targets industries to reduce their GHG emissions by a certain number. Additionally, a separate state level corpus fund should be created on the lines of green fund for financing CST technologies and to showcase the annual energy savings potential across the entire chain. The long-term trajectory targeting the high potential sites / sectors of CST technology should also be rolled out by the G20 working group for the creation of sustained demand, rolling out regulatory procedures for the promotion and incentivization of innovative designs, technology specifications and compliances. It should be backed by the formation of standardized EM&V manual/ guidelines so that the competitiveness and performance of solar thermal technologies shall be replicated at a global level.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of ICRIER.
