Is Solar Energy Sustainable? Or Solar Power: How Sustainable?
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Is Solar Energy Sustainable?
India is a founding member of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and it's a great pride of India the way our country has been a trendsetter in setting Solar Projects in the last 10 years. India is 4th most attractive market for renewable energy, having already installed 35 GW (approx) of Solar Power Projects which is roughly 10% of our total cumulative installed Power generation capacity.
As they say with a great opportunity comes great responsibility, and in this case, that is nothing but how do we ensure the "SAVING OF WATER" which is one of the scarce resources? Cleaning Solar panels consume a huge quantity of water and a lot of it gets wasted without being recycled. Solar generation depends on the clear availability of sunlight and the generation gets affected as the dust settles on the panel considering the environmental condition. The soiling losses typically contribute to 2% of the overall loss of efficiency and directly impact the generation, unlike other losses. Most of solar projects depend on regular cleaning of the Solar module at regular intervals as per the dust concentration of the area. The cleaning cycle is either weekly or fortnightly.
Going by the estimates a KWp (1000 Watt) Solar panel in the most optimized way would end up consuming 5.5 Lts -6 Lts of water on average which means an MWp ( 1000 KWp) of Solar PV System would roughly consume, 6000 Lots of water on every cleaning cycle. As the solar installation are mostly designed on:- GROUND OR ROOFTOP, it becomes inevitably important to take into consideration how to conserve the runaway Water through suitable mechanisms. Its been seen most of the ground-mounted projects end up discharging /wasting the water on the ground post-cleaning, there are no suitable channels designed to channel the water for further recycling. Similarly, on Rooftop Solar projects, there is enough way to capture the runaway water but it's absolutely ignored and left to flow on the ground.
About 80%-90% of the Solar assets are located in water-starved areas primarily in AP, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tamilnadu, and some parts of Gujarat where water availability is always a challenge or it becomes further critical to conserving water in these critical arid regions. As compared to other power-generating sources like Thermal and Nuclear, water utilization for solar power generation is much more efficient ( 0.1 cu.mts per MWh Vs 2.2 cu.mts from Thermal) but the major concern is considering the location of solar projects in arid regions where water is scarce. Also to ensure availability of the water, the deep borewell is been installed in most of the projects which impact the water table.
After a detailed study, its been quite an acceptable fact is designing a Solar system is not about only designing the Solar system but also ensuring how do we ensure the water resource is judiciously used in the most sustainable way. The readiest option is building concrete channels to channel the runaway water into the collection well /pits where it can be used to recycle or reverse boring to pump back the water to the ground with suitable filtration. The rooftop solar system similarly should have "C" channels running along the roof sheds to collect the water and can be integrated with the RAIN WATER harvesting system. Alternatively, it could be treated in water filtration plants.
There are some other innovative technology that uses Air pressure to clean the Solar panel and auto cleaning through the robots movable along the module table or installation. Another alternative way is to use anti-soil and Hydrophobic coating on the solar module.
As per United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015, by 2030 The water demand is going to outstrip supply by 40%. This is an eye-opener and it's better now than never.
Solar is one of the most abundant sources of energy for mankind and utilizing it in a more sustainable way is equally important for the entire human civilization.
The Govt along with MNRE, the Water resources board, and other agencies should enact suitable laws to strictly implement procedures by mentioning water usage limits for Solar projects which comply with norms leading to sustainable utilization of water resources.
LET'S BE RESPONSIBLE TO FUTURE GENERATIONS AND LET'S BE RESPONSIBLE TO THE NATURE
By: Suvendu Lenka
Head - Sales & Business Development I Solar & Renewable Energy I Smart Grid Infra I Sustainability l Electrical Systems