Solar Energy Generation Potential Estimation in India and Gujarat, Andhra, Telangana States

Abstract

It is well known that the rampant increase for the demand of electricity and rapid depletion of the fossil fuels has called for immediate response in the direction of energy sufficiency. To accomplish this, one of the important tasks is to identify the locations of high potential for renewable energy generation. It is a well-established fact that solar energy proved to be the most sought after source for energy generation. Although, solar energy potential maps of India have been prepared based on solar irradiation maps in the earlier studies, the present research study has been carried out with a focused attention directly on solar energy generation considering various parameters. In this work it is shown that solar energy generation does not depend on solar radiation alone at a location. Instead, there are various other factors that influence the energy generation. Some of them are ambient temperature, wind velocity and other parameters like weather and topographic conditions. In this study the locations with high and low solar energy generation potential in India have been identified through systematic analysis by computing the solar energy parameters at every grid point (1 ° × 1 ° ). The work has been extended with more detailed study for Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and the newly formed Telangana states. The data points considered for the states are 0.25 ° × 0.25 ° having resulted in adding more number of locations. Our results indicate that the total annual energy generation in India varies from 510,000 KWH to 800,000 KWH per acre of land. The least energy generation location pertains to the eastern parts of Arunachal Pradesh and eastern part of Assam and the highest annual solar energy generation has been identified in the eastern parts of Jammu & Kashmir and eastern part of Uttarakhand.