Prospects and Barriers for Renewable Microgeneration in India

Abstract

Today, India is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases with fast growing energy demand. The fact that India has no nationwide energy system due to natural causes such as impassable forests, mountainous areas, and considerable distances, makes the development of microgeneration based on renewable energy is a promising direction for this country from technical, economical, and environmental points of view. The present paper aims at analyzing barriers for developing the microgeneration based on the most advanced renewable energy technologies (photovoltaics and small wind) in India. Our results demonstrate that for many territories in India, microgeneration is not just a supplementary way to provide electricity to the local population, but also the only way. Therefore, higher technical requirements are imposed, particularly the need for parallel development of microgrid management and energy storage technologies. This creates additional technical, infrastructural, and financial barriers to development and reduces the role of an individual consumer (prosumer). Due to the low importance of individual consumers, companies selling and servicing micro-generating equipment are more focused on the B2B sells format, manifested in the strategy of their representation on the Internet.

Keywords

• renewable energy
• microgeneration
• microgrids
• energy policies
• solar power
• wind power