Jumpstarting the Sustainable Energy Revolution One City At a Time

we are all

aware about the ill effects of global

warming

however many of us don’t know what is it

that we

can do about it energy is required for

human development

for the past two centuries energy has

driven human development

energy is needed for lighting up our

homes

providing us heat providing us comfort

however the fossil fuel driven energy

industry

which is the source of most greenhouse

gas emissions

has been the cause for global warming

we have to figure out a way to solve

this

and continuing use of fossil fuels

is unsustainable

india has committed to producing 40

of its energy from fossil fuel free

sources this is a challenging commitment

nuclear hydro wind and solar

are some of the options that we have

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solar energy has seen great strides

in the last few years but the question

that we have

most of the time is what can we as

individuals

do about it this is where i will talk to

you

about rooftop solar panels solar energy

from ground mounted solar panels

has seen great strides or great movement

in the last few years

almost 32 gigawatts of capacity has

already been installed

it is the rooftop panels that has not

seen much

development

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the problem with ground mounted solar is

that they are

installed far away from where the energy

is consumed

the transmission and distribution losses

are quite significant

and trucking the energy from one place

to the other

incurs significant losses we need to

minimize this

the advantage with solar panels is that

consumption happens

right where the generation happens

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one of the advantages with rooftop solar

panels

is that there is a lot of consumer pride

when a consumer installs solar panel on

his roofs

there is a lot of pride associated that

he is contributing to renewable energy

however solar panels haven’t taken off

much in the country

only 5 gigawatts has been installed to

date

we have a long way to go before we can

install almost 40 gigawatts

which is our target

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so let us see what are the problems

associated with that for one

the awareness about solar panels is

actually quite low

not many people know about that this is

an option for many of them in their

homes

for those who do know about solar panels

they are not very much aware about

the technology issues the economic

issues or even the policy issues

associated with installing solar panels

on their roofs

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distribution utilities are very wary

about

solar panels simply because they feel

that there will be a revenue loss

for them developers on the other hand

find it very hard to acquire customers

because customers are unaware

about the potential of rooftop panels

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banks are unwilling to lend simply

because they feel

that they do not know how much can be

generated and the risk associated with

that investment is fairly high

these are barriers that we feel that we

need to fix

the center for study of science

technology and policy has a mission

to generate policy options using science

and technology

for a sustainable secure and inclusive

society

so we looked at this particular problem

and thought

how can we jump start this ecosystem

c-step wanted to develop a solution

which helps

with reduction of costs through a

economies of scale approach

we wanted to work with the local

utilities as well as developers

to create a win-win situation for all

stakeholders

involved

one of the issues that we realized is

that the risk associated with installing

panels was fairly high

the technology that we could use was

aerial imagery

and the light detection and ranging or

lidar as it is called

can map large contiguous areas

fairly quickly in a very short period of

time so we took on this particular

project

of mapping all the rooftops in bangalore

using aerial imagery we are able to map

all the rooftops in a contiguous area

we can also map various structures and

make sure that we can

identify the shadowed areas

shadowing is a major consideration a

person installs a rooftop and if there

is a shadow on that particular panel

the generation from that panel reduces

drastically

and hence makes the business case

unviable

one of the advantages with mapping of

this type

is that we can then take the data and

provide it

to the consumers this is where we also

developed

a web-based tool that allows consumers

to access their data

and determine the techno-economic

calculation for their respective

rooftops

in this manner we would hope that users

would be able to take pride

in the fact that they have installed

something and done something for

sustainable energy

another advantage to mapping of this

type is that

the data set generated is very rich it

can be used by the government

or by the various other departments for

various other urban planning

problems and issues the light detection

and ranging instrument is mounted on a

helicopter

and it is flown across the city we did

that by mapping

almost thousand square kilometers of

bangalore

the data generated is what we would call

a point cloud

and the point cloud is then stitched

together

to generate a digital surface map

this is a three-dimensional map of the

entire city

identifying all the buildings all the

roofs

all the trees all the poles that we

might have

this data is then analyzed to generate

places on the roof

that are shadow free we then calculated

using solar insolence data the potential

generation

from each of these spots on the roof the

shadow free areas were analyzed to

determine how much rooftop solar

potential

is there on each of the rooftops this

data was then

stored in a database that is now

available to all consumers

through a web portal

now one of the advantages of this is

that

users can take advantage of installing

it on their roofs

the distribution companies can get the

excess generation

and sell it to other consumers and in

this manner

we could have a lower carbon footprint

to our

city

on the web portal what the users can do

is identify their respective rooftops

calculate the potential of rooftop solar

on their particular roofs

see what it would cost and then based on

their consumption

they would also be able to determine the

techno-economic

or the economic calculation for their

respective rooftops

and decide for themselves whether that

is something that they could

invest in and install on their rooftops

apart from finding out what their

potential is

consumers can also customize the area of

the roof that they would want to install

the solar panels on

they can then calculate the economic

calculation for that particular rooftop

and decide whether they would want to

install the panels on their roofs

what we have found from this exercise is

that the city of bangalore has a

potential

of almost 3 gigawatts of solar energy

we are currently working with this local

utility

and other civil society organizations to

install

almost one gigawatt of solar panels on

roofs in bangalore

this will be an effort the first of its

kind

in india and at this scale probably the

first of its kind

in the world

what does it mean for us otherwise

we need to scale these operations up

beyond the city of bangalore to the

entire country

the good news is technology is available

drone based photogrammetry aerial

imagery

is much cheaper than what we spent

flying a helicopter

it can be done at the fraction of the

cost and

can be done across multiple cities

in fact we are doing it in 10 more

cities across the country

in bihar and madhya pradesh

we believe a structured and scientific

approach

to this particular problem can help us

achieve

this target of 40 gigawatts of rooftop

solar panels

in the country in the coming years

so for the residents of bangalore take

advantage of this mapping exercise

and log on to the crest tool and see how

you can

install solar panels on your rooftops

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for consumers in other cities i would

urge you to write to your local

utilities

as well as your energy department and

request them

for mapping of your city you will be

surprised how open they are to such

suggestions

together let’s kick start this rooftop

solar revolution

[Applause]

you