NATIONAL SOLAR MISSION:

Starting in the late eighteenth century, fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas have been extracted from the earth and burned in engines to feed economic growth. But, with growing awareness of the risk of human-induced global warming, there is pressure on all countries to increase their reliance on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. The challenge that many developing countries, including India, now face is to redefine their strategies for development while embarking on a path that relies primarily on clean energy and still delivers growth. But can a low-carbon development pathway improve living standards such as access to clean drinking water, sanitation, education, health and life expectancy?

The National Solar Mission (NSM) is one of eight missions launched by India as part of The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), which identifies measures that promote India's development objectives while addressing climate change effectively.  It will also constitute a major contribution by India to the global effort to meet the challenges of climate change. The objective of the National Solar Mission is to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as possible. The immediate aim of the Mission is to focus on setting up an enabling environment for solar technology penetration in the country both at a centralized and decentralized level. The first phase (up to 2013) will focus on capturing of the low hanging options in solar thermal; on promoting off-grid systems to serve populations without access to commercial energy and modest capacity addition in grid-based systems. In the second phase, after taking into account the experience of the initial years, capacity will be aggressively ramped up to create conditions for up scaled and competitive solar energy penetration in the country.

India has set the ambitious goal of achieving 22 GW (22,000 MW) of solar energy capacity by the end of the XIIIth Five Year Plan in 2022. This goal has several other targets: It aims at 20 GW of grid-connected capacity made up of large photovoltaic’s (PVs) and solar thermal power plants and smaller rooftop PVs; 2 GW has been set aside for off-grid solar plants; 20 million sq. m. of solar collectors for low temperature applications; and 20 million solar lighting systems for rural areas. The Mission will adopt a 3-phase approach, spanning the remaining period of the 11th Plan and first year of the 12th Plan (up to 2012-13) as Phase 1, the remaining 4 years of the 12th Plan (2013–17) as Phase 2 and the 13th Plan (2017–22) as Phase 3. At the end of each plan, and mid-term during the 12th and 13th Plans, there will be an evaluation of progress, review of capacity and targets for subsequent phases, based on emerging cost and technology trends, both domestic and global. The aim would be to protect Government from subsidy exposure in case expected cost reduction does not materialize or is more rapid than expected.

Solar lighting for the poor needs to be prioritized in the NSM as it brings immense socioeconomic benefits. There is also a natural alignment of PV with decentralized use that meets the needs of poor. We needed a transparent and an inclusive process to formulate the NSM but this has clearly not and happened has resulted in a loss to the poor and marginalized. There also needs to be better coordination between central government and state government policies so that we have a coherent policy on solar energy in the country as a whole.