The XII Five Year Plan will take into account two approaches – development of energy-efficient systems for non-conventional energy use in agriculture, and substitution of conventional or non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy sources, M.M. Pandey, Deputy Director General, Agricultural Engineering, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), said here on Tuesday.
Ground work
Inaugurating the XVII Biennial Workshop of the All India Co-ordinated Research Programme (AICRP) on Renewable Energy Sources at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, he said that though some ground work had been done in these areas, in terms of commercial success it was very less.
“Therefore, there is a need to increase the technical feasibility and economic viability of renewable energy systems. ICAR has planned to fund 12 major projects on bio-energy, since bio-energy has been identified as one of the thrust areas under the XII Five Year Plan,” he said.
The ICAR was at present implementing the National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) network project at a budget outlay of Rs. 300 crore, wherein energy related interventions formed a part of the efforts to develop and adapt a climate-resilient agriculture in the country.
P. Subbian, Registrar and Vice-Chancellor in-charge, said that energy development was considered an important tool for economic development to increase energy security and to address environmental concerns.
“Solar energy in India has great potential to generate electricity and the country is among the top five destinations world-wide for solar energy development.
Most parts of India have 300 – 330 sunny days in a year, which is equivalent to over 5,000 trillion KiloWatt per hour per year, which is more than India’s total energy consumption a year,” Mr. Subbian said. Indian States needed to realise the vast potential of renewable energy and need to step up efforts for attaining the goral of “2020” by reducing 20 per cent in greenhouse gases, 20 per cent share of renewable energy and 20 per cent conservation of energy.
These gases were attainable and the momentum needed to be maintained so that India attained a target of having 70 per cent renewable energy use by 2050.
Source: The Hindu,12th July 2012