Scope of Solar Energy in Utfara Kannada, Karnataka State, India: Roof top PV for Domestic Electricity and Standalone Systems for Irrigation 100 T. II Ramachandra is affiliated to Energy and, Wetlands Research Group, Centre 'for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, Centre for Sustainable Technologies [CST], Indian Institute of SCience, and Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Itenspor: and Urban Planning [CiSTUPj, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Ganesh Hegde is affiliated to Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India; and Gautham KrishnaDas is affiliated to Energy and Wetlands Research Group, Centre for Ecological SCiences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Energy is essential for economic and social development of a region. Dependence on fossil fuels has posed a serious threat due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, dwindling stock of the fuel resource base. Among daily activities, about 80% of the mechanical work requires electrical energy.Dependence on the conventionalenergy resources for efectricity generation is eroding the resources at faster rate. The process of electricity generation causes significant adverse effect on ecology by producing enormous quantity of byproducts including nuclear waste and carbon dioxide. Improving energy efficiency, switch over to renewable sources of energy and de-linking economic development from energy consumption (particularly of fossil fuels) is essential for sustainable development of a region. Green energy technologies have gained importance as they are'feliable and environmental friendly. Electrical energy harvesting from solar radiations ls one such promising technology which uses photoelectric effect. Solar photovoltaic (SPV) modules directfy convert solar radiations to direct current (DC) electrical power which can be used for various applications (or stored in battery) or can be sent to the existing grid, ' T.V. RAMACHANDRA, GANESH HEGDE AND GAUTHAM KRISHNA DAS Scope of Solar Energy in Uttara Kannada, Karnataka State, India: Roof top PV for Domestic Electricity and Standalone Systems for Irrigation Uttara Kannada is located in the west coast of Karnataka, India, receives an average solar insolation of 5.42 kWh/ m2/dayannually and has more than 300 clear sunny days. This solar potential can be utilized to meet the domestic and irrigation electricity demand. Domestic demand of the househofd in ruraf region is about 50 to 100 kWh per month and that in urban region is less than 150 kWh/ month in Uttara Kannada. The solar potential assessment reveafs that, domestic demand can be suppfied by instalfing rooftop SPV modufes, since fess then 5% of the rooftop is required in majority of the houses and irrigation demand can be met by installing PV modules in wastelaf}d where fess than 3% of available wastelandarea is sufficient. To estimate the fraction of rooftop required to generate sufficient efectricity, rooftop area of a household in sefected vilfages (chosen randomly, representative of agro-cfimatic zones) is digitized using Google earth image (http://googleearth.com). Electricity demand in households is estimated based on the sample househofd survey of 1700 households, which indicate the requirement of 50-100 units (kWh) per month per househofd. Computed rooftop area per households is used to extrapolate for all the viflages in the district. Rooftop area required to instalf the PV module to meet the respective household's electricity demand is computed. In the similar manner the ~rea required to generate efectricaf energy to meet the irrigation demand in the viflageis determined. Inmost of the villages in the district, less than 0.5% of the available wasteland is sufficient to meet the irrigation demand. Feature