Green Grids Initiative

In News

• Recently, India, in partnership with the United Kingdom, announced the Green Grids Initiative — One Sun, One World, One Grid (GGI-OSOWOG).

More about the initiative

• Declaration and recognition:
  • The “Green Grids Initiative” was announced at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
    • More than 80 countries backed it.
  • The announcement was accompanied by the “One Sun Declaration”, which stated that, “realising the vision of ‘One Sun One World One Grid’ through interconnected green grids can be transformational.
• Origin: 
  • The concept of a single global grid for solar was first outlined at the First Assembly of the ISA in late 2018. 
• Aim: 
  • It envisions building and scaling inter-regional energy grids to share solar energy across the globe, leveraging the differences of time zones, seasons, resources, and prices between countries and regions. 
• Implementation:
  • This project aspires to harness the sun’s energy and build a global interconnected electricity grid to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. 
  • The development of the grids will take place in three stages:
    • The interconnection of the Indian grids with the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asian (MESASEA) grids
    • MESASEA grids’ interconnection with the African power grid
    • Finally, global interconnectivity
  • The initiative is expected to connect more than 80 countries across a large geographical area, with varying levels of sunlight. A transitional system will enable countries with low levels of sunlight to obtain energy from areas with an excess of it.
• Green Grids Initiative Working Groups: 
  • It has been made up of national and international agencies that have already been established for Africa and for the Asia-Pacific region. 
  • Their membership includes most major multilateral development banks, such as the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

Significance:

• Using unlimited energy potential: 
  • In one hour, the earth’s atmosphere receives enough sunlight to power the electricity needed by every human being on earth for a year. 
  • This unlimited energy is completely clean and sustainable. 
• Climate Change resilient: 
  • Being a thermal energy-dependent country, India faces severe electricity shortages in many areas due to heatwaves (when demand increases) and coal shortages. 
  • GGI can transform the traditional energy system by replacing thermal power plants with solar energy, making India more resilient against extreme weather conditions and less dependent on fossil fuels.
• Decarbonization: 
  • It will also help decarbonise energy production, which is today the largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Storage: 
  • It will reduce the need for storage and increase the viability of solar projects. 
• New avenues: 
  • It will not only reduce carbon footprint and cost of energy but open up new avenues for cooperation between different regions and different countries.
• Rural community:
  • The implementation of GGI can enhance the quality of life of rural communities in many other areas like access to electronic gadgets, clean drinking water, among others.
• Setting an example:
  • It could set a model for how rich countries help poorer ones to reduce their emissions and meet the goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms.
  • India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal already share transmission capacity for energy transfer across borders which can be expanded further and utilised for the transfer of solar power between these countries.

Challenges:

• Efficiency of Existing solar infrastructure: 
  • A majority of the solar energy infrastructure is located in desert regions, which brings dust deposits on panels. 
    • A layer of dust decreases solar power conversion efficiency by 40 percent.
  • Its documentation does not comment on improving the efficiency of the existing solar energy infrastructure in the country. 
• Cost-effectiveness:
  • Environmental cost:
    • There are hidden environmental costs of setting up solar energy infrastructure. 
    • Solar energy technologies such as batteries and panels use energy-intensive raw materials and several chemicals and heavy metals that need to be handled and disposed of correctly. 
  • Capital investment:
    • Power transmission across vast distances would require large capital investment to set up long transmission lines. 
    • Experts have pointed out that transmission across great distances can potentially be very expensive. 
• E-waste and industrial discharge:
  • The initiative also does not define strategies to recycle and repurpose existing infrastructure, which can be an exciting avenue to view through the circular economy lens.
  • Since 2011, solar power capacity worldwide has been growing by 70 gigawatts per year. 
  • Solar panels generally have a lifespan of 25 years, after which they have to be retired since they lose their efficiency. 
  • According to these trends, it is estimated that 28 million panels will have to be decommissioned every year, starting 2026. 
  • Most of these panels will be disposed of in landfills, drawing severe environmental repercussions. 
  • Therefore, developing a system that encourages the repair, reuse and recycling of existing solar panels is essential. 

Way ahead

• Before GGI is implemented, a lot of factors need to be reconsidered. 
  • Environmental costs of solar power, 
  • efficiency issues, 
  • energy losses due to conversion and transfer, and 
  • The problem of waste management 
• These are the barriers that need to be addressed urgently by the implementing bodies.
• Implementation in India:
  • There have been no indications of country-specific plans for India to enable a smooth transition from traditional energy systems to solar energy and improve energy conversion efficiency. 
  • To make the initiative a success in India, there needs to be a careful consideration of the initiative’s costs and benefits. 
  • Its modifications need to be planned in ways that suit the country’s requirements and resource capabilities. 

Source: DTE