With rise in investment in solar power, the costs of alternative source of energy is dwindling rapidly but for the 1.5 billion people world wide without electricity affordability still poses a major problem.
By proper harnessing of sun’s energy, the over dependence on fossil fuels for energy needs would drop steadily thus creating a pollution free environment. Governments world over are giving huge subsidies to household for installation of solar panels. A German household, for example, can earn over 2000 euros a year from subsidies to install solar panels.
However, it is the people of the developing nations with abundant sunshine who are far behind than the developed nations regarding utilization of solar energy, despite severe power shortages. The Inter-Academy Council, a scientific body that groups academics worldwide, said last week that efforts to curb climate change should include the vast numbers of people who lack basic energy.
For developing countries, low income coupled with low subsidy is making clean energy use difficult. However, there have been some heartening developments over the past few years regarding solar energy use in these countries. In Karnataka for example, private firms backed by state government subsidies have been supplying solar power to households in cities over the past 3 – 5 years. Huge discounts are availed on the power bills for households using solar energy.
According to J.P. Painuly, a senior planner at the Denmark based Risoe National Laboratory despite kerosene heavily subsidized its limited availability has made solar power using photovoltaic cells a viable option for the people in rural India.
Solar power has additional benefit of curbing death from indoor pollution. It is estimated that on an average 1.5 people worldwide die annually from suffocation due to indoor pollution.
The high cost of solar panels could be highlighted from the fact that the cost of standard solar panel supplied by The Solar Electric Light Company(SELCO) to Indian household costs $250, which is equal to at least 12 months’ income of Indian rural household. For wider use of solar power, the governments of developing countries should give high subsidies to the users.
Source:Reuters
Image
