Solar Power plant - is it possible?

[Med911]

Re: Solar Power plant - is it possible?

@Guppshupper

The cost i quoted included the cost of foreign oil.

When you are evaluating cost you need to see how much money it costs to generate certain number of units over a period of time.

With fuel based your cost is spread over the period - say 20 years and it costs 18Rs. per Unit of electricity.

With Solar, you have a massive one time cost - and over the period of 20 years it costs 29 Rs. per Unit.

So in short - fuel based have periodical expense , while solar has one time expense. But if you compare total cost - Solar is very very expensive. Only benefit is lower carbon footprint and less dependency on oil - thats it. In terms of cash, solar has a long way to go before its cost is affordable for economy like ours.

Solar is ideal for off the grid areas and use at localized level - i.e. homes, or buildings. Massive concentrated generation is useless for country like ours.

They should consider subsidizing it by charging wealthier consumers a bit more on their bills. The poor dont generally use half as much as the wealthier consumers and yet, end up paying the same price. An extra 11 Rs per Unit wont break their backs im sure. I mean, I think they would prefer paying more over having to endure 18 hours of load shedding… All other options (perhaps more viable ones) will take years. This may work as a stop gap measure until other options are available.

Perhaps politics precludes selectively raising rates on particular consumers for the benefit of others, but im just throwing it out there.