India looks big on alternative energy: expert

Imagine running your computer on a solar energy backup for five hours a day! It’s possible, says an expert who sees India as a promising destination for alternative sources of power.

Terence ‘Terry’ J. Hart, vice chairman and technical director of IT Power India Pvt. Ltd., sees states like Karnataka and West Bengal ahead in the use of alternative energy.

A lot is happening in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu too, and Gujarat is coming up well.
‘In Himachal Pradesh, there’s micro-hydro and in Uttarakhand there’s work going on over the restoration of traditional watermills for power and grain-grinding,’ Hart told IANS in an interview.

He estimates that one could run a computer on a solar energy backup — for five hours a day — at an installation expenditure of $250.

Hart says while India is seeing ‘a very large production’ of solar panels with a capacity of 100 MW per year, most of this is exported to Europe, the US and Japan.

‘That seems completely ridiculous. But there are policy issues involved. The history here has not been of a free market. Subsidies are offered, for instance, in the case of solar lighting. Without a level playing field, the possibility of commercial-based growth will be killed,’ he says.

Hart argues that nobody can compete with subsidised production.

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