1 Infrastructure for Sustainable Renewable Energy in India: A Case Study of Solar PV Installation S. A. Khaparde, Senior Member, IEEE, and Arunavo Mukerjee, Member, IEEE Abstract— The renewable energy sources are going to become the long-term solution for future energy. Adequate infrastructure development is of crucial importance to harness power from them. This paper accumulates state-of-the-art issues and feasible solutions associated with large scale deployment of the renewable energy technologies. Various alternatives presented here are likely to change the look of the future power system. The role of existing technologies, automation, and communication for sustainable development is explained here. A case study of solar photovoltaic installation is presented to show efforts of India in sustainable energy development. Index Terms— Distributed energy resource, energy storage devices, information and communication technology, MicroGrid, renewable energy, sustainable development. I. I NTRODUCTION L IMITED fossil fuel resources have directed the mankind to find alternative ways to satisfy the future energy needs and optimizing the utilization of the existing resources. The renewable energy technologies, in this regard, are likely to be the potential solution for future energy requirements. They not only provide energy, but also help in reducing effect of the green house gases (GHG). Various renewable energy sources such as wind, photovoltaic cell (PV cell), hydro, biomass, biofuel, etc., are going to play an important role in sustainable energy development. Worldwide survey of 132 nations indicated that, the nations ranked high on sustainable development, tend to have higher usage of the renewable energy [1]. The central idea presented in this paper emphasizes on the infrastructure development to achieve sustainable energy scenario in the energy deficient countries like India. The need of an intelligent grid has been recognized here to accom- modate distributed energy resources (DERs) and renewable energy technologies on large scale. Different issues related to the deployment of renewable energy resources and possible enabling technologies are discussed here. A case study in the Indian scenario has been presented as an effort of India towards sustainable energy development. The organization of the paper is as follows. Section II ex- plains various issues related to the development of sustainable energy using renewable energy technologies. Different alter- natives based on upcoming technologies to tap the renewable energy potential is detailed in section III. Section IV briefs the activities of various organizations like European Union S. A. Khaparde is with Electrical Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India (email: sak@ee.iitb.ac.in) Arunavo Mukerjee is with Tata International Ltd., India. (email: AMuker- jee@tatainternational.com) and United Nations. Efforts and achievements of India in sustainable energy development is explored in section V. A case study of the renewable energy development using solar photovoltaic installation is also presented in the same section. Section VI concludes the paper. II. KEY I SSUES FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT USING THE RENEWABLE RESOURCES Possible uncertainty of the fossil fuel based resources in coming decades and market price hikes of the fuel have renewed interest into the green power generation. However, the ways of utilizing these resources face lots of new challenges in planning, implementation, and management. Various issues in harnessing power from the renewable energy resources involve technology selection, investment, generation control, power quality and reliability issues, government policies, etc. These issues are broadly categorized and explained here. A. Technology selection The process of technology selection relies upon various technical as well as commercial indices. These indices can be represented in the form of a matrix known as sustainability matrix. The technology with maximum total index can be re- ferred as the most suitable technology. One such sustainability matrix showing the cost of sustainable electricity generation is presented in [2]. Based on [3] and the discussion with the Maharashtra Energy Development Agency (MEDA) personnel, a sustainability matrix for various renewable technologies in Indian scenario is prepared as shown in table I. The weight allocation to each index, however, is a subjective matter, and the list of the attributes presented is not exhaustive. Still, the table is sufficient indicative of the overall evaluation. From the table it can be observed that wind and biomass power generation look promising. B. Investment Per kW investment on the renewable energy technologies is much higher as compared to a conventional coal-fired power plant. Except hydro and wind power generation, other technologies are not market proven. Hence, they put some risk on the investment. In addition to the capital investment, the auxiliaries like reactive power support, black-start capability, storage capacity, etc., to maintain reliability and power quality of the supply, eventually increase the cost of energy to the consumers. ©2008 IEEE. Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY BOMBAY. Downloaded on December 5, 2008 at 00:23 from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.