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- 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.
- The “Green Grids Initiative” was announced at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
- 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.
- A majority of the solar energy infrastructure is located in desert regions, which brings dust deposits on panels.
- 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.
- Environmental cost:
- 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
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