Page 14 - CIJ Nov 2023 Digital Edition

News Track
India’s Clean
Energy Aspiration
n an address at the Energy
Transition Dialogue in New
Delhi, Union Minister Piyush
IGoyal outlined India’s ambitious
energy transition goals. With
the nation’s economy poised for
significant growth over the next
three decades, Goyal emphasised
the urgent need to meet the surging
energy demand with clean and
sustainable sources.
India’s energy transition strategy
is twofold: reducing dependence
on traditional energy sources and
ramping up the production of clean
energy, including green hydrogen
and ammonia. The government’s
production-linked incentive (PLI)
program has been a cornerstone of
this strategy, promoting domestic
manufacturing across various
sectors, notably in solar PV and
green hydrogen production.
Goyal acknowledged the
challenges of transitioning from
coal, given the intermittent nature
of renewable sources like wind and
solar. He underscored the need for
alternative baseload power sources
and highlighted Prime Minister
Modi’s vision of an international
power grid as a potential solution
to this challenge.
The minister also addressed
the global discourse on carbon
taxation, assuring that India
is actively engaging with the
European Union to align with
their carbon border adjustment
mechanism. This alignment
would ensure that Indian exports
to EU countries would not incur
additional taxes if equivalent
carbon taxes are imposed in India.
Financing the energy transition
remains a critical issue, with Goyal
pointing out India’s relatively
minimal contribution to global
greenhouse gas emissions and
calling for developed nations to
provide affordable technology and
financial support.
NOVEMBER 2023•Clean India Journal
14 www.cleanindiajournal.com
Space-Based Solar Farms Show
Promise
n a groundbreaking thermal and vacuum conditions
development that could of space without significant
revolutionise the renewable deterioration.
Ienergy sector, researchers
Professor Craig Underwood
from the University of Surrey from the University of Surrey
and Swansea have provided expressed enthusiasm over
substantial evidence that solar the panels’ resilience, which
farms in space are not just a has outlasted their one-year
sci-fi fantasy but could soon expected lifespan by sixfold.
be a commercially viable This technology could pave
reality. This revelation comes the way for large solar power
after a six-year study, marking stations in space, providing
a milestone in the quest for a continuous supply of clean
sustainable energy solutions. energy to Earth.
The research, published in
the journal Acta Astronautica, The concept of space-based
details the successful solar power involves capturing
deployment of low-cost, the Sun’s energy, which is more
lightweight solar panels that abundant in space due to the
have been generating power in lack of atmospheric filtering
space. These panels, developed and night-time loss. This energy
using cadmium telluride by the would then be converted into
University of Swansea’s Centre microwaves and transmitted
for Solar Energy Research, are back to Earth, where it could be
more efficient and significantly converted into electricity and
lighter than current technology, fed into the grid.
making them ideal for space
conditions. The potential of this
technology is said to be
The satellite, designed and immense, with a single satellite
built at the Surrey Space Centre capable of delivering enough
with collaboration from the power for a city of two million
Algerian Space Agency, has people. While there are
observed over 30,000 Earth challenges, such as the size of
orbits. Despite a decrease the satellites and the receiving
in efficiency over time due antennas on Earth, the benefits
to radiation, the panels’ of an infinite source of carbon-
performance has exceeded free energy are too significant to
expectations, enduring the harsh ignore.