By N N Sachitanand

Despite its limitations, the global growth rate of solar photo voltaic installations has spurted.

Those who dislike nuclear energy because of its safety problems strongly tout solar energy as a clean and renewable alternate for India. India experiences clear sunny weather for over 250 days a year, with the average daily solar energy incident over the country being as high as 5.8 kilowatt-hours per square metre, With a land area of roughly 3 million sq km, this translates to a total energy incidence of 6000 trillion units/year (1 unit = 1 kilowatt hour).

The common scientific armour against alternative energy systems, if we take the energy from water concept, for that matter, is the first law of thermodynamics (which leads to conservation of energy). It says "The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings". In layman terms, it says energy cannot be created and input energy should be greater than output considering all systems are less than 100% efficient

Raktima Bose 3 more solar power plants for West Bengal Solar energy-run housing complex set up at New Town in Kolkata Aim is to achieve zero-carbon emission KOLKATA: West Bengal is pitching in in a big way to find alternative sources of power in the face of rising fuel cost and growing global warming. It is slated to get three more solar power plants in Purulia and Bankura districts, after the one at Asansol in Burdwan district, first of its kind in Southeast Asia, S.P. Gon Chaudhuri, Director, West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Authority (WBREDA), on Wednesday.

Hyderabad, July 13: With increasing power shortage, state government at last has started looking at non-conventional energy sources like solar and wind power to ease the burden on traditional power generation. From existing 2 MW capacity of wind mills, state government has finalised plans for 1000 MW in coming five years period.