Harvesting The Sun - Incentives offered for solar panels

Its free, its bright, and its natural. Solar energy is clean, it has no side-effects, and the resource is abundantly available. Its the perfect alternative to smoke-belchers like coal. The dream renewable option however has eluded us all the while, though, only because the cost of solar panels photovoltaic cells, to be more precise has been prohibitive, particularly in a developing country like India where coal is available in large quantities and the cost of drawing energy from it is far less. Unsurprisingly, the choice has been the cheaper, though risky, option. There has been limited public appeal for using solar energy in households for heating water and cooking food. It is therefore welcome news that the government plans to make available a 30 per cent subsidy for installing solar panels on rooftops for household use, with the promise that the cost waiver could be increased to 50 per cent if all states show encouraging signs of implementing the proposal. The proposal is in keeping with the prime ministers National Action Plan on Climate Change, that sets great store by solar energy initiatives to reduce polluting emissions from fossil fuels like coal and oil. The ministry of new and renewable energy is planning to generate 1,000 MW of solar energy by 2013 and 20,000 MW by 2022. To subsidise the cost of photovoltaics is a good way to initiate investment and interest in solar energy. However, long-term solutions have to be based on cheaper technology.Collaborative projects with countries like Germany where considerable effort has gone into honing solar panel technology including attempts to replace silicon with hair that is a better conductor and costs almost nothing to produce more affordable panels with newer materials would help bring down costs.

(source-toi)