Page 189 - CW E-Magazine (12-11-2024)

Special Report

solar it is crucial to roll out suffi cient words, against the installed capacity of tional and maintenance costs. There are
storage solutions to provide the fl exibi- 100-GW of solar power only 17-20 GW also a few ecological issues, as these
lity and ensure supply when the wind of solar power is produced. installations can disturb sea animals.
is no longer blowing or the sun is no
longer shining. While the problem can There are other issues too. Solar Additionally, newer direct-drive
be overcome to some extent by building panels, for one, degrade over time, turbines require rare earth elements
energy storage capacity, this cannot be with the lifespan depending on their (REEs) to make permanent magnets.
adequately done. build quality, maintenance, and local China produces 63% of the world’s
conditions. Most panels retain 80% of REEs and 92% of rare earth magnets,
The other problem is in acquiring their electricity production capacity for but also has its own wind and renewable
the land for commercial solar arrays. around 30 years. However, after that, projects consuming these resources.
Around 4,000-acres of land are re- they need to be removed and replaced. Further, REE supply from China has
quired to install 1-GW of solar power become a geopolitical issue and is
capacity. This would call for a huge Recent research has focused on unlikely to be sorted out anytime soon.
level of population displacement for solar panel recycling, with some studies
land acquisition, which could cause producing promising results for the What future for wind and solar power?
social tension and humanitarian issues. reuse of silicon from old solar panels. Globally, in coming years, it may
These research efforts are still in the not be possible to sustain the growth
Low capacity utilisation of solar early stages and cost-effectiveness in installation of onshore and offshore
power plants is another issue. The US of recycling is yet to be convincingly wind and solar at the required pace due
Department of Energy defi nes solar established. Environmental advocates to several constraints including land ac-
conversion effi ciency as “the percent- express concerns about the issues in quisition issues. Further, the life span of
age of the solar energy shining on a recycling due to the potentially hazardous solar and wind power plants to operate
solar panel device that is converted into materials solar panels contain. at optimum effi ciency is only around
usable electricity.” The agency points 25-30 years. Beyond this period, it may
out that most of the sunlight hitting PV Issues with wind power become necessary to replace them,
cells gets lost during the conversion The capacity utilisation factor of which would call for means that huge
process. Light either gets refl ected wind power in India was only around investments and virtually repeating the
or turned into heat, instead of getting 18% in FY23, 19% in FY19, 16% in entire installation exercise all over again.
converted into electricity. FY18, 20% in FY17 and 14% in FY16.
In India, 70% of annual wind genera- Global energy consumption growth
Recombination is another factor tion is during the fi ve-month duration accelerated in 2023 (+2.2%), much
limiting solar panel effi ciency. It hap- from May to September. The capacity faster than the average growth rate
pens when charge-carrying electrons utilisation scenario of wind power is between 2010-2019 (+1.5%/year) and
merge with charge carriers known as not much different in other countries this upward trend is likely to continue.
‘holes’, which do not have electrons. also. According to OPEC, global energy
During recombination, the energy turns demand would grow by 24%, from
into light photons or heat, instead of There are critical problems with tur- current levels, by the year 2050. This
producing electrical energy. bines, as well as other issues that need increase is inevitable due to the growing
to be overcome to allow wind farms to world population, growth in per capita
Snowy conditions can also affect keep operations at optimum effi ciency. income and technology developments.
the absorption power of panels, lower- Land acquisition is another issue. For In such circumstances, energy supply
ing the availability of solar energy to 1-GW of onshore wind power gene- have to be met substantially by fossil
the panels, which will, in turn, reduce ration, around 30,000-acres of land is fuels and the contribution of solar and
the amount of electricity the panel pro- required. The acquisition of land would wind power would still be limited.
duces. Snow can also cause physical be a very big bottleneck in boosting
damage to the panel if allowed to collect onshore wind projects. While offshore Policy planers must pursue plans
in large quantities. wind avoids the land acquisition issue, for boosting solar and wind power. But,
there are serious constraints in boosting at the same time, they need to keep in
Currently, most solar panels have offshore wind power production due to mind that these green options can only
effi ciencies of only 17-20%. In other prohibitively high installation, opera- be supplementary sources.

Chemical Weekly November 5, 2024 189

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