- What must be done to get some relief from costly electric power?
- What will it take to swap the roles of normal electric supply and renewables while fulfilling the energy needs?
- What should be done so that in at least 3 years time, renewables account for over 80 per cent of our energy consumption?
- What prevents us making a cleansing world of renewables?
- Do we always need to depend on the government to make true progress in renewable energy, while gradually replacing fossil fuels?
- Wouldn't it be great if we had an in-situ all-inclusive initiative, closer to the actual usage location, where our ideas would have a better chance of being realized practically?
Let us view some out-of-the-box ideas and study these questions.
All studies conclude that conventional electricity tariffs are unusually high, and that to handle the problem of high electric power costs, the concerned user must exponentially increase the generation of alternative means of energy or renewables.
It is also an accepted fact that renewables cannot fully replace conventional sources as the bulwark of the energy system- at least not in the immediate future.
A local from-the-bottom-up renewable energy strategy to complement the efforts of our central and state governments.
Such examples encourage decision makers involved in their energy needs to break out of the conventional straitjacket and to think in a different way about the future of the energy needs.
So here's a proposal. As an example.
This is a from-the-bottom-up comprehensive strategy. It's the "Renewable Energy" idea.
In a typical educational institution's site premises, there is considerable potential for renewable energy set up especially in solar. It can further be complimented by incorporating other real and potential forms like wind, hydel and geothermal.
Let a small area be spared from the institution's premises to install, develop and implement an energy system based for harnessing a range of renewable energy sources. Utilising such an area would serve as a strategy to apply human and financial resources on the most promising areas in an optimization process. It would be similar to setting up of an in-house power plant which is decentralized and begins only with locally available resources. The size of each such unit would be specific to a given area's real and potential energy sources. It would depend on the magnitude of energy sources, practical administrative considerations and distances that affect costs.
This approach allows even the most remotely located renewable energy sources, which sound like science fiction today to become a reality tomorrow. Thanks to technological progress.
The resulting energy matrix from this idea is :
Rows - all conceivable energy sources
Columns - specific points in time starting from the present and progressing at intervals of, for example, five years, which represent planning goals.
Cells - percentages of total energy consumption for each row category at a specific time.
The advantages: It serves as a basis for focusing and concentrating efforts and resources in the most likely areas to optimize the use of human and financial resources. It could serve as pilot projects that would help in making the best use of resources. Such an initiative is a force multiplier that can help the country move up the value chain, making Indian industry globally competitive.
These solutions may appear academic but who knows it might trigger a thought process that would lead finally to a better future.
The world has seen at regular intervals individuals whose dreams flouted rational acceptance but whose efforts brought significant visible changes in our lives. These people didn't allow traditional thought process to restrict their imagination.
