9:24 PM Apr 24, 1996

NORTHWESTERN INDIA: SOLAR ENERGY

Scientists say the endless sands in the Indian State of Rajasthan could well earn the distinction of being the "biggest"solar powerhouse by 2010, producing 10,000 mw of electricity.

A charged Rajasthan Energy Development Agency (REDA) has started the spadework on an ambitious project. Says Director Prabhat Dayal: "A major chunk of the desert, about 35,000 sq kms, will be declared a Solar Energy Enterprise Zone like the one in Nevada (United States)."

Dayal thinks that if the state was to install solar collectors in just one percent of its desert which stretches over 200,000 sq kms, "we could generate 6,000 mw of electricity."A city the size of Delhi with 10 million people needs 1,800 mw.

"This solar bowl of the desert will become the world's biggest centre for solar power generation, research and development," he declares.

The earth receives some 4,000 trillion kilowatt hours of electromagnetic radiation from the sun -- about hundred times the world's current energy consumption needs. At present, a 354 mw solar power project in southern California is the world's largest, providing 90 percent of global solar energy.

Inspired by the progress made in the United States, Australia, Japan, Britain and China, which are forerunners in the field of solar energy application, the authorities in Rajasthan invited applications from 29 countries for setting up power stations of between 50 and 300 mw on a "build, operate and maintain basis".

"Giants like U.S-based Amoco Corp and Enron, Energen Corp., Germany's Schailac Bergermann and India's Sun Source have already booked their spots in Rajasthan's sun,"says a REDA official.

The Amoco-Enron Solar Power Development, a consortium of two U.S companies American Oil and Enron Power Corporation with a 50-50 equity holding, will use the tried and tested photovoltaic conversion system.

This technology converts sunlight directly into electrical power with a solar cell, small versions of which are commonly used in calculators.

Amoco-Enron are planning "thin film" photovoltaic technology-based power generating stations with a combined capacity of 2,400 mw to be built in three phases. It has proposed the setting up of factories for the manufacture of thin film solar panels of 10, 50 and 100 mw annual capacity in Rajasthan.

Its first power station, a 250 kilowatt unit, would begin functioning by end-1996, say officials here in the state capital Jaipur, some 400 kms west of New Delhi.

A possible answer to India's perennial power shortages which causes frequent electricity failures particularly in the hot summer months. Its installed capacity of 79,000 mw is roughly two-thirds the requirement.