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