Karnataka - Bangalore   

‘Nobody can privatise the sun’

Staff Reporter

Need for development of renewable energy options emphasised

Bangalore: The global energy crisis is like a Greek tragedy, said Hermann Scheer, General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy and German MP. “Everyone knows that it will not end well. But the actors have no power to change.” We must recognise the “existential crisis” that could arise from the fact that more than 80 per cent of our power comes from fast depleting fossil fuels and nuclear energy, he said.

Dr. Scheer emphasised the importance of developing renewable energy options, while speaking at ‘Solar India 2007’, a two-day conference and exhibition on solar energy organised by the World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), Pune. The event, supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, aims to create a platform to prepare a roadmap for solar energy development in India.

“A permanent economy is only possible with the energy from the sun. The sun, with all its derivatives — wind, plants and water — offers to the globe in 15 minutes energy equivalent to our annual nuclear and fossil fuel consumption. All we need is to develop technology to harvest it,” he said.

Energy is a human right, and it cannot be met with our conventional sources of energy, which necessarily leaves the control of these resources in the hands of a few multinational companies. “We need another energy paradigm: nobody can privatise the sun,” he said.

Presenting the Indian picture, V. Subramanian, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said that at 500 kg per capita, India’s energy consumption is a quarter of the global average. “But we import 70 per cent of our oil. Therefore, moving to renewable energy is not a mere a fashion statement; it comes out of a dire necessity for a country like India.”

The renewable energy sector should be given incentives, he added, especially at a time when the conventional energy sector was getting up to 200 per cent subsidies in some cases. The installed capacity for renewable energy in India was as much as 10,500 MW, he said, though demand for solar energy was only 10 MW.

G.M. Pillai, founder and Director-General, World Institute of Sustainable Energy, said the existing Electricity Act dealt only with conventional energy, adding that a separate renewable energy law was necessary. In a proposed “policy roadmap for solar power development in India”, WISE has recommended that India pursue a grid-connected strategy for the development of solar energy and undertake a “solar technology mission” to chart out a plan for solar energy development in the country.

Several companies representing the solar energy industry participated in the exhibition.

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