Is clean electricity a reality?

When will countries like India stop burning coal to generate electricity and adopt clean forms of electricity? Is this even possible? Yes it is.

Until a few years ago, we could not say with confidence that clean forms of electricity were available at a household level, leave alone at the utility level. A decade ago when I planned my eco resort, Our Native Village, I wanted to be off grid completely, but could not achieve that because of the cost. We still generated 70% of our electricity using solar panels, a windmill and a biogas plant to produce gas that was used as fuel to run a 25KVa generator – and this was in 2006! The resort was celebrated and awarded globally. In 2015, I say that it is immensely more possible today to generate electricity using clean technologies, like solar and wind. Much has changed in these two sectors – tech innovation, large-scale adoption, a drastic reduction in costs and widespread awareness to sustainability concepts.

In 2000, it was predicted that worldwide, wind capacity would reach 30 GW by 2010. By 2013 that goal was exceeded by 10x. What used to cost just above $200 per mw hour in 1974, came down to less than $50 by 2012. Global wind energy capacity increased from around 50,000 mw hour in 2005 to over 3,00,000 mw in 2010. The world’s largest offshore wind farm, the London Array, powers 4,70,000 homes. From Mexico to Morocco, China to Chile, including India, are building windmills to harness clean electricity.

It is even bigger and optimistic when we look at solar. The projection in 2002 was that solar energy market will grow 1 GW per year by 2010. That was exceeded by 17x in 2012 and 48x in 2014. Worldwide solar PV installations increased from around 50,000 mw hour in 2008-09 to more than 3,00,000 mw hour in 2013. This was fuelled by the fall in costs of Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells from $76 per watt in 1977 to $0.74 in 2013. Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are all investing in large-scale solar initiatives. In 2014, more than a million residential properties in Australia, one in seven homes, had solar systems. In the first half of 2014, 56% of new US energy generation came from renewable sources.

Nature has been generous. Wind can supply worldwide electricity consumption 40 times over. Enough solar energy reaches Earth every hour to meet the power needs of the entire world for a full year. India receives 300 days of sun per year – more than any other country in the G20. Now, do we accept this grace from nature and commit fully to clean energy generation, or do we continue to use environment-degrading coal burning technologies to generate electricity and continue to discharge large quantities of GHG? The choice is for us to make.

(The writer is an author, speaker, trainer, consultant, an entrepreneur and an expert in applied sustainability. Visit: www.CBRamkumar.com.)

Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.