India’s Quest for Global Solar Thermal Industrial Process Leader
Abstract
India's import dependence on fuel oil rose to 81% in 2015-16 from 78.5% in the previous year. industrial sector consumes 38% of total energy consumed. Close to 16 million tons fuel oil is consumed annually in India for medium-high industrial heating applications i.e. up to 200 OC. It is anticipated that up to 25% of this energy can be conserved through energy efficiency measures or adopting renewable energy sources especially using solar thermal systems. Although the Direct Normal Incidence (DNI) in India is not amongst the highest in the world but the available radiation for almost 300 days in most of the industrial regions of the country offers potential to exploit solar thermal energy to supplement the industrial heat requirement. So far close to 15,000 m2 collector area has been installed for industrial process heating in the country largely in dairy, food-processing, automobile and engineering industries. These projects are already a benchmark globally. However, process optimisation and greater awareness needs to be addressed to harness the available rich sunlight and rid the country to a certain extent from importing fuel OIL. India has the quest to be a global leader in industrial process heat through solar thermal.