Electricity-hungry India is flipping the switch on huge new solar energy projects to fuel its growing economy, using cheap — mainly Chinese — foreign technology to reduce once sky-high generation costs to competitive levels.
Since 2010, India has hiked installed solar power capacity from a meagre 17.8 megawatts to more than 2,000MW, official figures show, as part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's aim to make "the sun occupy centre-stage" in the country's energy mix.
Key to the progress has been a rapid fall in the cost per unit of solar electricity to close to what is known as "grid parity" -- the cost of conventional electricity generated by carbon-gas emitting coal.
"The world is watching the ability of Indian entrepreneurs to achieve grid parity for solar energy," India's World Bank country director Onno Ruhl said recently.
"India has the potential to be a world leader" and a showpiece for efforts to address climate change, he told an energy seminar in late December.
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The drive to harness the sun's power began in earnest with the 2010 creation of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission by the current left-leaning government led by the Congress party.
It set a target of generating 20,000MW of grid-connected solar power and 2,000MW of off-grid generation, such as roof panels, by 2022.
That would still represent just one-eighth of India's total installed power base, but the government believes the share will rise as prices for solar infrastructure keep falling.
Power from imported coal and domestically produced natural gas costs around 4.5 rupees a kilowatt-hour while solar energy costs are seven rupees -- down sharply from 18 rupees in 2010, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy says.
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'World's largest plant'
The next stage of expansion will see India build the world's largest solar plant to generate 4,000MW on the shores of a saltwater lake in the northwestern desert state of Rajasthan, which should drive solar power costs even lower.
Operators believe economies of scale from the 280-billion-rupee ($4.4 billion) Sambhar plant to be constructed over the next seven years will reduce prices to 5.0-5.5 rupees a kilowatt-hour.
"This is the first project of this scale anywhere in the world" and "is expected to set a trend for large-scale solar power developments," said Ashvini Kumar, director of Solar Energy Corp, one of five public utilities that will run the plant.
The sprawling project makes it comparable with very large coal-fired power projects.
