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Knowing the potential of generating solar power at your location is now much easier. By using an android app, developed by the Gujarat Energy Research & Management Institute (GERMI) common man can know the solar potential at his location.
The Solar Potential app will be much useful to the solar developers and industrialists to identify the location to set up their solar power installations.
Developed by Jaymin Gajjar, a research associate at the institute, the app has solar photo-voltaic (PV) map of the entire country. The maps have been created based on the 10-year weather data and satellite data based on geographical factors such as radiation, elevation, humidity among others.
Launching the app, T Harinarayana, Director, GERMI, said, "By providing the latitude and longitude of any location within India, one can know the annual and monthly energy generation potential. This will help reduce time for executing a project and save additional costs of consultants to know the solar energy potential."
The app, shows colourful maps of India and three states namely, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. "The highest solar potential is in Leh area of Jammu and Kashmir, while lowest potential is in North-East region. In Gujarat, we have found highest potential at Junagadh around Girnar, while lowest potential is in Northern Kutch," said Harinarayana.
According to Harinarayana, at higher altitude and lower temperature, solar power generation potential is highest. "Higher the altitude, lower is the temperature, therefore higher will be the solar power generation potential. At 25 degrees temperature, solar PV panels generate optimal power."
He said that the data and method of mapping the solar power potential have been verified by the international standards.
"There is a huge interest from industries to set up solar projects at their locations. Also, with government's focus for roof-top solar projects, this app will help people know about potential in their area without putting additional cost. There will be upgrades of this app and we will add more features also," said Gajjar adding that the app can be downloaded from the Google Play on an android smartphone.
The institute is also looking at launching the solar thermal maps with the existing app, so as to get the potential data for solar thermal projects as well. The solar thermal app will be ready in the next 2-3 months.
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