Feature Article

The launch of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) in 2009 catapulted the Indian solar market into the global league. The mission's target of 20,000 MW by 2022 is among the biggest solar goals announced worldwide.

The policy environment over the past year has helped set the stage for a more competitive renewable energy market in India. The current capacity has been achieved largely due to supportive legal framework anchored in the Electricity Act, 2003, which has been complemented by capital subsidies, feed-in tarriffs (FiTs), accelerated depreciation and, more recently, generation-based incentives (GBI).

Despite facing infrastructural bottlenecks, SHPs (small hydroelectric power) stand second only to wind power in terms of contribution to renewable energy in India and hold immense potential for makers to cash in on the growth. All that it needs is the right policy push.

Conceptualised as a means of making green energy available to the masses, the company (ONergy Solutions) is a perfect instance of how ethics can make for a viable business practice too.

Instead of fretting over the paucity of electricity, these 'solar grandmothers' from villages across Asia and Africa decided it would be better to act. As if to give vent to their ambition, the Barefoot College incepted by Bunker Roy, has showed them the way to electrify several villages across the globe, via solar power.

In a country which reels under voluminous and bountiful amount of sunshine, tapping solar power should ideally be an effortless task. Ironically though, the economics have come in the way of the solar mission. The author unfolds the trend in India and what we can expect in the times to come.

A decade ago, environmentalist Hunter Lovins published Natural Capitalism. The book influenced some business leaders to embrace what was a counterintuitive notion: that going green could be a way to save or make lots of money. Since then, she has gone on to establish Natural Capitalism Solutions, a Colorado-based firm that helps businesses and governments become more energy-efficient and better prepared for the global threats of climate change. She recently wrote Climate Capitalism that presents the climate crisis as a giant business opportunity.

Solar, wind and biomass may soon cross a key financial threshold.

Use of renewable energy can help meet industries meet thermal energy and cooling requirements.

The concern today for corporates is about how to use technologies to address the kind of problems that we face and how to generate the technologies to address the issues specific to India. (Extract from the inaugural keynote address by Ajay Mathur at Technology Review's Business Impact: Corporate Energy Strategy Conference on September 22, 2011 in Mumbai, Maharashtra.