Solar Energy in India: The Solar Mission and Solar Cookers

by Abhijit Banerjee on November 30, 2009

in Solar Energy, Sustainable Living in India

It is a device you can use to cook on top of Mt. Everest on a sunny day. That’s why the Indian Army used it in Kargil. It came to immense use when an earthquake ravaged Gujarat. It is called solar cooker which works by converting sunlight to heat energy. This energy is then retained for cooking.

The same solar energy can also be used in your house, saving you thousands of rupees in your lifetime by eliminating energy bills. As conventional fossil fuel energy sources keep getting depleted, research is being carried out on how to generate electricity from non conventional source.

But the amount of solar energy produced in India is merely 0.4% compared to other energy resources. The amount of incident sunlight India receives is estimated at five quadrillion watts a year. Even if a hundredth of that could be utilized, it would be enough to meet the country’s current and projected annual energy requirements.

Mass cooking

The country’s scientists have taken advantage of this abundant renewable energy source to set up solar concentrating cookers in several places for mass cooking.

In Shirdi, a pilgrimage in India, a solar steam cooking system caters to 3000 devotees every day. At Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam has been set up what probably is the world’s largest system with capacity to prepare food for 15000.

Solar cooking bowl at Auroville, Pondicherry, India

The collective kitchen of Auroville, Pondicherry, India, has a huge bowl installed to harness solar energy for cooking.

Solar Mission

India’s Solar Mission under the National Action Plan on Climate Change, plans to generate 1,000 mw of power by 2013. If this is successful, the phase II of the mission would target annual generation of 20,000 mw by 2020. The country currently produces less than 5 mw every year.

Energy from the sun will be most useful in rural power supply. There are plans to set up solar lighting systems in 9,000 villages under existing schemes by providing soft loans which would be refinanced by the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited. In India, specially in rural India, fuel used for cooking comprise wood, charcoal, dung, animal dung and crop residue which emit toxic smoke at about seven times the safe limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA). This is estimated to cost as much harm as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.