The Hindu Business Line : Solar power

With reference to your editorial “Solar future” (Business Line, July 19), I would like to add a few bits of information for the perusal of the public, policy-makers and politicians: The CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) system is much cheaper than SPV (Solar Photo voltaic) system when the scheme is implemented on a mass scale.

In the CSP system, the longitudinal parabolic shaped mirrors are installed and, by an auto tracking system, keep always facing the sun; the reflected rays from the parabolic shaped mirrors are focused on the continuous tubes, which get heated up; the fluid inside the tube is taken to a heat exchanger. The water in the heat exchanger is converted to high pressure steam by convection. The steam drives the turbines which are coupled with the alternators. Thus, power is generated.

Merits of the system: Mass electrical energy produced at less cost compared to SPV system; Major portion of industrial power requirements can be met; As the country is near the Equator, abundant solar energy is available everywhere in India, compared to the wind power potential (which is limited to some pockets only);

De-merits of the system: Only in the day-time can electrical energy be produced (for night-time use, a huge battery bank is required); Vast land area is required (though we can use the barren land for the purpose); Considerable quantity of water is required to meet the loss of water during the cycle of evaporation and condensation in the process of running steam turbines; Initial small amount of electrical energy is required for running the motors for the auto tracking system.

The CSP system is fairly simple to set up and run, given the competence of our scientists and engineers. Only vision is required for our politicians and policy-makers to mandate a certain proportion of renewable power production and to fund such projects properly.

The world is rapidly approaching a major depletion of conventional energy reserves. Thus, it is high time we make a major effort to harvest renewable sources of energy.

S. Gnanasekaran Mumbai

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