India's Solar Resources are the best

India's solar energy potential is the highest in the world.

See below data that makes it very clear.

India Solar Energy Summit- New Delhi

India Solar Energy Summit- New Delhi
17-18 Feb 2011

I attended this summit as Solar Novus Today representative. Was an action packed conference with some good information sharing and discussions. The networking time interspersed was also quite beneficial. The downside was however that some companies used their speaking slots to merely do a sales pitch rather than sharing knowledge and learning.

Met quite some interesting people in the field of Solar and Renewables in general.
What was striking was that there is a lot happening in India, but there is no central official tracking of facts such as: how much is installed?, what is the performance/learnings? and what is upcoming?. So there was a general feeling in the participants of the summit that there is a lot of proverbial 'darkness' in India in this field. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is expected to take some lead in dispelling this darkness.

See the account of both days of the summit at Solar Novus: Day-1 & Day-2:

India’s Readiness as Solar Energy Leader - Solar Novus Today

India is on the right footing but I think far for mature in terms of the value-chain capabilities to get it going. Read my article published in Solar Novus on India's readiness as a Solar leader.

This article needs a bit of Solar know-how in the background esp. the value-chain aspects.

India’s Readiness as Solar Energy Leader - Solar Novus Today

Solar Energy- The most popular demand

Solar Energy has become the most favorable alternative as per a consumer survey done in the United States by Pike Research.

Solar Energy also had the least unfavorable score of only 4%. It also received the smallest percentage of neutral (13%) and not sure/not familiar (4%) type of response. The high levels of very favorable (52%) impressions for solar energy accross gender, income, education and age segments suggests that it enjoys a mass appeal to be the alternative technology of the future. Even older (65 or older) segments of the population had very favorable response to solar energy concept as did the younger segment and that proves that the enthusiasm is prevalent accross all generations. The research also noted that the benefits of solar energy are equally appealing to consumers regardless of their differences in energy consumption, home ownership and adoption of new technologies. 

Although this survey only covers US consumers, it is noteworthy as the world's biggest economy acknowledges and embraces the merits of this technology. This acceptance is now widespread and I am sure that other parts of the world would show similar results. Its really opportune that government and organisations of all countries now wake up to this fact and start supporting efforts towards including solar in their key energy mix to ensure security of energy supply and betterment of the environment.

A full copy of the white paper is available for free download on the Pike Research website.