Solar, Wind Energy potential to fall due to climate change: Study

NEW DELHI: A study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Science revealed that India’s solar and wind potential is anticipated to experience a downward trend in the future owing to climate change. The researchers analysed the wind and solar estimates for the renewable energy sector over the Indian subcontinent using advanced climate models created by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

While the yearly wind and seasonal wind speed is predicted to fall over North India, it will rise in South India. Conducted by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, the study titled “Analysis of future wind and solar potential across India using climate models” states that the southern coast of Odisha and the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu show great potential for wind energy in the case of climate change. Low energy producing winds are expected to increase in the future, while high energy producing winds will decrease.

According to future solar predictions, there will be a decline in solar radiation throughout the year over most of the country. The pre-monsoon months in central and south-central India must be taken into consideration for future investments in the solar power sector, it stated, as the potential loss is limited there.

These projections are crucial because India updated its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to combat climate change, incorporating two of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledges made at the Glasgow conference: reducing GDP’s emissions intensity by 45 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving about 50 per cent of the total installed capacity for non-fossil fuel-based electricity by 2030.