The solar energy revolution that began sweep the world a few years ago seems to have stalled, caught up in political games between the industrialised nations and China. However, the future remains bright as the sun is expected to shine again. Rajendra Shende was invited to write an article on the occasion of OECD Forum of May 2013 about recent ups and downs of the progress and prospects of PV modules and panels in context of its falling prices. Read the article that was published in special issue published at the time of OECD Forum: “Partial Eclipse”

1. May 2013 OECD Forum Special BIZ@INDIA5870
The solar energy revolution that began sweep the world a few years ago seems to have stalled,
caught up in political games between the industrialised nations and China. However, the future
remains bright as the sun is expected to shine again.
I
n just one year the Earth’s surface
receives as much solar energy as
two times the total reserves of the
Earth’s non-renewable resources of
coal, oil, natural gas, and mined
uranium combined.
Solar radiation received by small
part the Sahara Desert-area of about
nine times smaller than France or
almost equivalent to the area of West
Bengal of India- could provide all of the
energy need of 500 million Europeans.
Just over one per cent of its eight million
square meter of total area of this desert,
labeled in todays financial standard as ‘
worthless land’, could yield the same
amount of electricity as all the world’s
present power plants combined.
Only 15000 sq. km of total 200,000
sq. km of Thar desert on the Western
part of India’s State of Rajasthan, can
produce from solar radiation, total
electricity which would be more than
equal to all the installed capacity of coal
and other power plants in India.
Rajasthan is known for its natural
landscape and monumental heritage.
Solar energy could be ‘future heritage’
of Rajasthan.One square meter area on
the roof or the open space can give on
average one kW of electricity –good
enough for normal consumption of a
family in the developing country,
Earth’s deserts where the tempe-
rature could easily and frequently rise to
45 degree plus, are sitting ‘under the
energy reserve’ the way certain
countries are sitting ‘on top of fossil fuel
reserve’. Country-specific maps of
fossil fuel reserves are known to many,
and now the United Nations has
released the solar radiation maps
country wise! The field-testing of the
solar systems has now proved these
astonishing figures given above. And
what more, the photovoltaic (PV) cells
that convert the solar light into
electricity, used in this testing process,
hadmiserably and desolately low
effici-ency i.e. just about 15-18 per
cent. Indeed, that’s what maximum
efficiency present technology can offer
at commercial level. The laboratory and
pilot scale have reported the efficiency
levels of about 40 percent using
inter alia nano-technology. But the
cards on these results are being held
too close to the chest and the details
are not known. Imagine if such
efficiency levels of 40 percent or even
higher were realized, the world would
go complete solar!
Solar energy is the ultimate truth to
respond to energy challenge global. At
this point, the treatise on ‘global energy
security’ should be concluded.
Global Solar Energy Scenario
A partial eclipse
Rajender Shende

2. BIZ@INDIA May 2013 OECD Forum Special 71
Both renewable and non-renewable
energy sources are free for any one to
explore and exploit, but they come at
cost to each of us because they are
‘packaged’ for our use. Read any
report on solar energy, be it by
International Energy Agency or United
Nations, it invariably states that
technology to gainfully exploit the
solar energy exists, but its scale up
and the cost is prohibitive as compared
to alternate fossil fuel generated
electricity.
So, finally it all boils down to the
fact that the main barriers are human
inability to scale up the technology and
its failure to bring down the cost of the
solar PV systems.
We are living in the interesting times
indeed. Both the commercial scale
inventions of automobiles and
photovoltaic cells are nearly 100 years
old. Starting with assembly line for
automobile manufacture invented by
Henry Ford and his team, the world
has undergone the mobility revolution.
Once termed as ‘difficult to scale up
and definitely beyond reach of well-to-
do families’, the car manufacture
became cost-effective and cars soon
became accessible and affordable.
There is at present one car for every 7
citizens of the world. If 7 passengers
can be packed in a car, the whole
global population can be sitting in the
existing cars, with no one left to walk!
I am exaggerating and dramatizing
the situation for the simple reason. It is
for the industry and the policy makers
to reflect that : if we can transform
automobile industry so that it becomes
affordable and easy to operate, why
not solar power units that generate
electricity by photovoltaic cells?
Answer is not far to seek. There
were no power-wars in 1913 when
Henry Ford launched the revolutionary
assembly line technology. There were
no lobbyists and pressure groups from
bicycle industry or steam driven trains
or animal driven cars. Today the
scenario in the alternative sources of
energy is full of power-war with intense
lobbying. ‘Henry Fords’ of the solar
energy are deprived of the resources
to make the concerted efforts to
improve the PV technologies that
generate electricity from sunlight.
There are mainly two types of
technologies by which solar energy
can be converted to electricity. One is
direct method i.e. by Photovoltaic (PV)
which coverts the solar light to
electricity by photoelectric effect. And
another is indirect by CSP-
Concentrated solar power. Unlike solar
panels, which convert sunlight directly
into electricity, CSP utilizes mirrors to
focus light on water pipes or boilers,
generating superheated steam to
operate the turbines of generators.
Total global electricity generation
by photovoltaic cells today is just
about 0.2 percent of total electricity
generation. Electricity generation by
CSP is even much smaller.
Both technologies were invented
more than a century back, but were
nearly dormant due to ease in
availability of the coal and oil. Then
came the first oil shock of early 1970s
and the world started to uncover these
technologies that were gathering dust.
While the wars of 1970s that gave rise
to shortage of the oil were over,
another war of the fossil fuel versus
renewable energy started. The former
was limited to certain pockets of
geographical domain. The later was
fought and still being fought in the
global market place.
To make the solar energy affordable,
governments are providing the
incentives in various forms. The
subsidies could include those given to
manufacturers of the PV panels, users
of panels and feed-in tariff, but they
remain small frills in terms of their
amount and nature. Global subsidies-
direct and indirect-for fossil fuel
industry and users, for example,
amount to USD $1.9 trillion dollars
(1476.8 bn euros) as per the IMF report
released in April 2013. Of that, direct
subsidies amount to about half a billion
dollars. Compared to these subsidies,
that for solar electricity generation is
small fraction.
The subsidies, however small, seem
to have one definite impact: it helps in
market penetration, enhances the
scale of economy and help bringing
down the cost of solar energy.
The recent worldwide phenomenon
demonstrated such reduction in the
cost of manufacture of PV cells very
effectively. The costs came down
drastically by about 70 percent over 3
years. It unfortunately created a very
discouraging scenario, which reminds
me of the description of ‘solar storm’ in
the Sun’s atmosphere. Flares from
solar storm, as we know from physics,
create severe disturbances in the
communication systems on the Earth
because they interfere with geo-
magnetism. The storm created by the
Energy & Ecology
But the story of power-
war starts here.
Yearwisesolarcellproduction
AnnualProduction[GWp/yr]
Total
China, Taiwan
Europe
Japan
North America
Rest of World
Solar Cell Production
2001 - 2010
2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
20
15
10
5
00
year
( data source: PV News 2009.4, 2010.5, 2011.5)

3. May 2013 OECD Forum Special BIZ@INDIA58
Energy & Ecology
major countries in recent ‘flare-up’ due
to reduced PV cell process originating
from China did more harm than good
to the solar power generation and
international dialogue.
It all started due to subsidies offered
by the industrialized countries to the
users and producers of the electricity
from PV modules. The demand
increased steeply due to such
subsidies over last couple of years.
Even during the financial crisis, the
electricity produced by the PV panels
grew at unprecedented rate in Europe,
America and other countries. Chinese
manufacturers came in large part to
meet that demand. Backed by the
incentives made available by the
governments, the lower labor cost and
increased production levels, China
was able to deliver in the hungry
market the PV panels at much reduced
cost. Surprisingly, the industrialized
world, which always looked for the
lowering the cost and always
respected productivity, put barriers to
the import of PV Modules of Chinese
origin. The usual reasoning of the
national job losses and los of national
manufacturing base were used to
make complaints under the rules of
World Trade Organization (WTO). As a
result, China’s PV manufacturing
collapsed. Chinese government had
to ‘bail-out’ its PV industry. The ‘solar
flares’ not only interfered with the
‘geo-magnetism’ but also the ‘geo-
politics’.
It is strange that productivity is not
being rewarded when the solar energy
is needed most by the global
community. Interestingly, productivity
is even punished by the importing
countries under the rules of WTO.
There is a sunny side to this power-
war. The solar market is anything but
static and stagnant. In 2012 the global
capacity of solar PV installation grew
by solid 42 % by adding an estimated
29-30 GW to already installed capacity
of 70 GW. The growth is being seen as
consistently high from year 2000. Even
in the financial crisis of 3-4 years
starting from 2008, the growth rate of
PV installation suffered only marginally.
Though concentrating solar power
(CSP) has not had the same explosive
growth as solar PV, installations are
likely to be initiated on a commercial
scale in Spain, United States, Middle
East, North Africa, as well as in
Australia, India, China and South
Africa.
In the backdrop of minor percent of
Solar Energy in total global energy
scenario (Solar power accounted for
0.5 percent of global electricity
demand in 2011) these figures are
extremely encouraging.
Even in the wake of irrational wars
in the market place and the recent
stops and cuts in the incentive in
some countries (e.g. Germany Italy
and India), growth in capacity of PV
installation remained robust in 2012,
spurred of course by falling prices and
stronger policy frameworks for
example, in Japan and China. The
growth is projected to continue over
the medium term.
Improving competitiveness is
helping deployment of PV to spread
into Africa, the rest of Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East.
Government policies and incentivesare
helping to being down the capital and
operationalcosts for solar PV energy.
The average cost per installed watt
(system costs including electrical grid
connection and other equipment
needed for installation) of solar
photovoltaic in the United States has
dropped from over $7.50/watt in 2009
to $4.44/watt in 2012. In 2011 alone,
cost per installed watt declined 17.4
percent. If it has to compete with the
present cost of electricity, this cost has
to come down below $ 1 /W.
More than 100 governments are on
track to set conducive policies to
promote the solarenergy. Consumer
awareness on use of solar energy is
rising. Market is reacting favorablyto
the competition and economy of scale.
Prices are falling, what then is missing?
What we are missing is the century
old spirit of Henry Ford. Henry Ford
assigned the adequate amount of
resources for Research and
Development (R & D), took risks,
assembled his team,developed
coordinated strategies between the
teams and came up with technological
innovation now commonly called
‘assembly line’ to bring down the cost
and manufacturing time effectively.
That brought down the final cost of the
product.
The R&D needed today to improve
the efficiency of the PV cells to bring
down the system cost is not adequate.
R&D budget of OECD countries for
renewable energy today represents a
very small share of total spending by
the governments on R&D. While
Defense sector receives 30 per cent of
OECD governments’ support for R&D,
energy’s share at present is varying
between 3 per cent and 4 per cent.
Majority of this spending goes for fossil
fuel research. R&D expenditure on
fossil fuel and nuclear combined was
more than twice that for renewable
electricity. Ithas been observed that
R&D spending in emerging economies
for renewables is increasing but the
priorities are based on national
interests in each case. China has taken
global lead in patent filing for the clean
energy, PV solar is just part of it.
International Energy Agency (IEA)
made a strong recommendation at the
72
Photovoltaic power worldwide GWp[2]
Year Capacity
2005 5.4
2006 7.0
2007 9.4
2008 15.7
2009 22.9
2010 39.7
2011 67.4
2012 100
GWp=GigaWatts Peak,
( 1 GW= 1000 MW )
InstalledcapacityofsolarPVcellsglobally

4. Energy & Ecology
BIZ@INDIA May 2013 OECD Forum Special 73
recent Clean Energy Ministerial
Conference in New Delhi of increasing
the R&D spending for the renewable
energy. But the present financial crisis
is unlikely to allow the governments to
allot more resources for such R&D
spending.
There is a way out. The world has
experienced that R&D, if conducted
throughcollaborationandpartnerships,
brings down the costs and speeds up
the results. The OECD countries have
similar experience in their commercial
projects of the European Space
Agency and CERN-a research project
on particle physics. Further, it is not
just about how much money is being
spent on the R&D but how it is spent.
The money spent on coordinated
research and collaborative efforts
between the specialized teams from
OECD countries and emerging
economies would be more effective.
India, particularly, faces formidable
energy challenges on PV solar energy.
It relies heavily on fossil fuels and its
energy demand is set to grow more
than fourfold over the coming decades.
Current trends will drive up imports of
fossil fuels, increase local pollution as
well as greenhouse gas emissions,
and put its energy security at risk. But
India has a solid engineering base and
a strong, innovative private sector that
has consistently surprised the world
with pioneering and affordable
technology solutions.
India has the opportunity to take
lead in joint ventures in technology
transfer energy and technology
cooperation to enhance the efficiency
of PV cell. BP Solar’s joint venture with
Tata Group has indeed driven solar PV
activity in India, but a collaborative and
coordinated research to enhance the
PV efficiency above 25 per cent in
commercial installation would bring
the cost of solar energy very near to
the cost of other energy sources and
make it broadly affordable.
Another positive example in this
direction is that of Suzlon Industries in
the field of wind energy. Suzlon’s
strategy has been to acquire majority
shares in European technology
companies, expand its R&D facilities in
several countries in Europe, and
engage in collaborative R&D. The
company is currently passing through
a very tough period due to its extremely
highly leveraged books, brought on in
part by the high acquisition costs and
very rapid expansion. But Suzlon is
currently addressing the debt issue
and it is expected to be back on track.
These difficult times apart, Suzlon has
clearly set the tone for other Indian
companies.
Similar initiatives in the solar energy,
coupled with leveraging of India’s
knowledge power would make PV
solar energy within the reach of India’s
population. Building partnerships with
international agencies and companies,
establishing network of institutes and
research oriented Public Private
Partnerships(PPP) in solar energy
would be needed to make technology
breakthrough in PV cell efficiencies.
In the present financial crisis, it
makes sense for the OECD countries
to initiate the collaborative research
programmes taking advantage of the
youth power of the emerging
economies and the experienced
manpower of their own countries to
target the PV cell efficiency with time
bound programmes. It would be a win-
win strategy. The idea of secretive
research programmes in case of solar
energy is archaic. If the European goal
of 20 per cent renewable energy by
2020 is to be fulfilled, they need
out–of-box R&D that has global
dimension and that crosses the
boundaries, the way solar lights do.
photovoltaics.
Solar Map of the world