Make in India make it green

A century back, on January 9, Mahatma Gandhi made his determined journey to India with a singular goal of ‘Make in India’. He wanted to ‘Make in India’ a movement of freedom from foreign oppression, discrimination, and social apartheid. The capital needed for this was in the form of bold assets of non-violence and civil disobedience.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched his equally historic and rousing ‘Make in India’ campaign. His venture capital in launching this movement is in the form of India’s unique demographic dividend - the youth that constitute 65 per cent of its population.

The timing of the campaign is the most promising and opportune. The last time India arrived on the world scene with its technological supremacy was in late 1990s when software engineering crews of India created their back-office hives to help digitally managed businesses of the West. That was a ‘Make from India’ campaign! Those hives and their verticals and scale-ups are now over-dripping into the national treasury a stream of honey of $125 billion, of which exports are nearing $100 billion.

Once again India has a unique opportunity for yet another transformation. India reminded the world of its brain-power by taking lead in resolving Y2K bug at the dawn of this millennium.

By turning Make in India into Make in India with Green Power, we can create a win-win situation. The renewable energy is the only energy sector where investment and installed capacity have consistently grown with surprisingly steep rates even during the global financial crisis that began in 2008 and is still casting gloom.

From 2008 to 2013, as per United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), electricity produced from solar PV cells has grown at an average roaring 39 per cent. Investment in clean energy is $275 billion, at least 10 per cent better than in 2013. A whopping 44 GW of solar PV added, installed capacity worldwide in 2014 is 10 per cent more than in 2013.

Nearly 50 GW of wind turbines have been installed, up from 32 GW added in 2013. Sales of electric vehicles have increased by 50 per cent. The International Energy Agency chief has shown that solar energy could become the first source of electricity in the world before 2050. Going by its report, the World Energy Outlook 2014, renewable sources should in 2040 dethrone coal as a primary source of electricity.

Labeling the products made in India with green power would once again demonstrate India’s scientific legacy that values the ecosystems. Indians can create unique model for addressing freedom from poverty, inequality, and impacts of climate change.

The ability of communities in India to take bold initiatives has not been fully harnessed. Communities of residents, farmers, self-help groups, SMEs and corporate houses can come together to build solar PV electricity generation plants on rooftops of every building, on the arid land around villages, unused land of farmers, on the long routes of irrigation water canals (as is done in Gujarat), on railway and bus stations, on factory shades, corporate houses, government buildings and even parking places. These micro-power plants could then be ‘wired’ to develop the community grids - an energy internet - that would provide electricity for self-use, with the surplus tbeing sold to the grid for commercial purposes.

Deploying an affordable and efficient storage technology to enable the stocking of electricity can resolve the problem related to cloudy days when solar energy is inadequate and quiet days when wind energy is not generated.

Is this a utopian road map? Jeremy Rifkin, political scientist and technology forecaster who is a promoter of the lateral energy-network concept, is already assisting Germany to implement similar plans. Twenty million Germans (25 percent of the population) have chosen to be off-grid and generate their own electricity. Half of the electricity in Germany, a country known for its cloudy weather, is by solar energy.

Many of the 25 million Indian diaspora, spread over 180 countries have the potential to contribute to the Make in India with Green Power campaign by providing their expertise.

By: Rajendra Aneja