India: profitable the desert thanks to solar energy
Behind the dromedaries that graze the dry grass at the edge of the Thar desert, an oasis of Cobalt blue photovoltaic panels extends as far as the eye can see.Bhadla's giant solar farm is the centerpiece of India's plan to become a clean energy champion.
For the time being, India is the third largest carbon issuer in the world.About 70% of its electricity comes from coal -fired power plants.
But Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that the country was going to carry, by 2030, its share of renewable energies of 100 gigawatts (GW) currently at 500 GW, more than all its current electricity production.At that date, 50% of the country's energy must be clean, he promised, while affirming that India was aimed at carbon neutrality by 2070.
From an area equivalent to the Republic of Saint-Marin, the Bhadla farm is located in the desert state of Rajasthan.With its 325 days of sunshine per year, it is the ideal place to start this Indian energy revolution.
The project is presented by its promoters as a model of high technology, innovation and public-private collaboration.
In Rajasthan, "we have huge spaces where no grass grows.Now we no longer see the ground: we only see solar panels.It is a gigantic transformation, "says Subodh Agarwal, one of the energy policy leaders of" the Désésert ", as the Rajasthan is nicknamed.
- "Solar state" -
During the next decade, "it will be a different rajasthan.It will be the solar state of the Rajasthan, "he enthuses.
The construction of Bhadla, in the middle of the desert, had a minimum impact on human housing and agriculture.A few hundred people watch over the facilities but they are robots that remove dust and sand on 10 million photovoltaic panels.
Other mega-projects are underway.In Gujarat, Narendra modified launched last year, in another desert, the construction of a renewable energy park the size of Singapore.Several of the biggest fortunes in India, such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, the two richest men in Asia, begin to invest heavily in the sector.
There is an emergency: according to a report published in 2019, 21 of the 30 most polluted air cities in the world are in India in India.And the country of 1.3 billion inhabitants with frantic urbanization is increasingly voracious.
Over the next 20 years, India will have to add capacities equivalent to those of Europe to its current electricity production system to meet the dizzying increase in its national request, estimates the International Energy Agency (Aie)).And if the Indian capacities in renewable energies have multiplied by five in the last decade, they will still have to be quintuplely to reach the lens of 500 GW in 2030.
Vinay Rustagi, director of the Bridge to India renewable energy consultant firm, is skeptical.According to him, the Indian government is especially looking for "to show the world that we are on the right track".
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"Unfortunately, I believe that there is no way for us to achieve this goal," he regrets.
- Remode the energy system -
Because even if installing solar panels is relatively cheap, remodeling the Indian energy system will still require a lot of time and efforts, warn experts.
Thus, for the time being, around 80% of the panels are imported from China, the national production capacities being very insufficient.
And if giant solar energy projects like that of Bhadla are presented as successes, they could eventually collide with land acquisition problems and the multiplication of trials brought by expropriated owners expropriated.
Some experts therefore believe that the future of solar energy in India will rather go through the multiplication of small production units.
Like those that the doctor and farmer AmitSingh installed in his village in Bhaloji, Rajasthan.
While the village was struck by repeated power cuts and water shortages, Dr.Singh had an idea."I have always seen the sun and its rays, and I wondered: why not master it to generate electricity?", He told AFP.
He started by installing photovoltaic panels on the roof of his dispensary, which made it possible to cover half of the establishment's electricity needs.He then spent his savings to install a megawatt center in his small family farm.
This solar mini-central cost 35 million rupees (400.000 euros).An investment that will prove to be profitable within a reasonable time since each month, it reports 400.000 rupees (4.600 euros) in sales to the Indian electricity network."I feel like I am contributing to the development of my village," said Mr..Singh.
ARUNABHA GHOSH, expert in climate policy with the Energy, Environment and Water Council, considers essential to lower the costs of this type of small installation.
"When a peasant is able to generate electricity using a solar power plant near his farm and pump water, when a resident of the countryside can run a textile factory thanks to solar panelsPlaced on the roof, so we can bring the energy transition as close as possible to people, "he said.