Date:30/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/30/stories/2006113001090200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

TERI provides a boost to solar technology

Special Correspondent

TERI, in partnership with three EU institutions, conducted a training programme

Focus was on hands-on training in maintenance of solar energy units

TERI plans to integrate programme in ITI course syllabus

Bangalore: India, being a tropical country, has enormous potential for growth of systems that use solar energy but has low market penetration of solar technology.

The reason is the lack of technicians and engineers with adequate practical skills in areas of planning, design, installation and maintenance of high-performance systems. There are just no specialised courses.

To close this gap, sixty trainees from solar industries, renewable energy institutions, nodal agencies energy studies and industrial training institutes from across the country were trained at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) here for the past two weeks.

Those who partnered with TERI in this effort include three European institutions under the EU-India Cross Cultural Programme, from Germany and Belgium. Experts from SIJ-Germany, a renowned institute in solar technology, and two leading craftsmen training institutes, HWK-Germany and ZAWM-Belgium, provided faculty support.

Live demonstration

The training focussed on hands-on training in proper installation techniques, operations and maintenance of solar energy units, with live demonstration of installing units.

TERI plans to continue the programme by integrating them in the regular syllabus of Industrial Training Institute courses. There is growing focus in our country on tapping renewable energy sources and of an installed capacity of 126,000 MW of electricity, 8,200 MW is generated from renewable sources.

In the recent past, although there has been increasing use of solar photovoltaic technology for lighting systems, the technology has not been adequately exploited as a source of electricity.

The present cumulative capacity of grid-connected photovoltaic power system in India is only 3 MW compared to 8,200 MW being harnessed from all renewable energy sources. Similarly, although solar water heating systems have become popular in the past ten years, there is potential for the thermal systems market to grow as well.

Germany and Belgium have developed expert manpower for solar industry and technology that can be easily transferred to the Asian region where potential for using solar energy is high.