Solar thermal sector has not found much support in the country despite having applications for industrial, residential and commercial purposes and should be promoted by the government, a Delhi-based green body on Thursday said.
“Solar thermal has many applications where the heat of the sun is directly used for industrial, residential and commercial purposes but it has not yet found much support in the country,” the Centre of Science and Environment (CSE) said.
“The installed capacity of CSP in India is a mere 200 MegaWatts (MW) while solar photovoltaics (PV) on the other hand have an installed capacity of almost 5,000 MW,” it said.
In an effort to understand why the solar thermal sector has not been encouraged for power generation and other applications, the CSE on Thursday organised a conference ‘The forgotten solar: Solar thermal and its development’.
CSE’s report, ‘State of Concentrated Solar Power in India’ which focuses on formulating a roadmap for developing solar thermal in the country, was also presented and discussed on this occasion.
Noting that in the residential sector, the most prominent solar thermal application is solar water heaters that can be installed on any rooftop, the green NGO said in the case of industries, solar thermal can lead to huge fuel savings.