Solar energy, dc distribution, and microgrids: Ensuring quality power in Rural India
As the Leisang village in Manipur received electricity in April 2018, the prime minister of India announced that every Indian village is now electrified. A village is considered electrified in India when 10% of its homes receive electricity. However, the number of village homes that have electricity has now reached 84%, with some 41 million households still without power. This village-electrification program has been going on for many years. Until a few years back, there was a large shortage of power with power demand exceeding supply, leading to no/a weak push to extend the grid to the village. Over the last few years, when more coal power plants became operational, the supply strengthened. At the same time, the energy costs for the solar and wind powerattained grid parity, enabling the addition of significant renewable power. Simultaneously, the power grid was strengthened, and India attained a single national grid on 31 December 2013, such that power generated in surplus areas could be transported to deficit regions. All of this helped in surplus power generation because the demand did not pick up much in recent years. The social obligation to extend the electric grid to each village and then to at least 10% of its homes no longer had a fundamental bottleneck. The target-driven approach of the prime minister?s office helped to expedite the effort.
Electric vehicles in India: A novel approach to scale electrification
Over the last few years, electric vehicles (EVs) have captured the imagination of people in many parts of the world. Approximately 1.1 million passenger EVs (cars) were sold in 2017, up by about 57% from the previous years. China contributed 600,000 vehicles, the United States had 200,000 and Europe 125,000. EV sales in Norway constituted 50% of all vehicle sales. Several nations have announced that their vehicles will be fully electric by 2025, 2030, or 2040. General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and others demonstrated their EV ambitions by making major EV announcements, while Chinese automakers like BAIC and Changan announced they will sell only EVs after 2025. According to Bloomberg, the global EV sales will grow by 40% in 2018. U.S. sales are expected to exceed 300,000 units, and European sales should reach around 400,000, with Germany as the leader. China will lead the way in four-wheeled vehicle as well as electric bus sales. Beijing has committed to completely switch over its taxi fleet of around 70,000 vehicles by 2020. Moreover, by the end of 2018, charging infrastructure is expected to constitute almost 700,000 stations.
Solar-dc Microgrid for Indian Homes: A Transforming Power Scenario
It is well established that access to energy is closely linked with socioeconomic development. India houses the largest share of the world's population deprived of electricity with about 237 million people lacking access (International Energy Agency). At the same time, in India, many households that do have access to electricity lack an uninterrupted and quality power supply. A recent study conducted by the Council for Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) across six states (Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Odisha), found that about 50% of the households had no electricity despite having a grid connection. This indicates that there is an immediate need to address the quality, affordability, and reliability of the power supply in addition to extending the grid footprint.
Electrifying India: Using solar dc microgrids
According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency [1], although India is the second most populous country on earth, it ranks far behind other countries in terms of per capita electricity consumption and carbon footprint. As shown in Table 1, India is well below the world average in both per capita electricity consumption and carbon footprint indices. However, with an ambitious plan for rapid growth and economic development, India is poised to quickly increase its carbon footprint and become a major contributor to preventing global climate change.