India Eyeing a New Monster 100GW Solar-Capacity Goal (arstechnica.com)

AmiMoJo writes: In a confirmed report India's energy minister suggested that the country is considering issuing a tender for 100 gigawatts of solar energy, which may be tied to solar panel-manufacturing buildout. In 2015, India set a goal to reach 100GW of solar capacity as part of its larger aim of 175GW of renewable energy in general by 2022. This latest 100GW tender would be for a 2030 or 2035 target.

The existing goal is ambitious, so a stretch goal further into the future is even more so. The country's current total solar capacity is just 24.4GW, (for context, as of this month the US has about 55.9GW of installed solar capacity total) but it's growing quickly. Utility-scale solar capacity grew by 72 percent in the previous year.

Comments

That was from 2013...

[SuperKendall]

What matters is actual output, and in India that is around 15-19%. So installing 100 GW of "capacity" really means installing around 15-19 GW of actual generation

That's an interesting point, but that data seems to be from 2013 so it seems like upcoming generation would be quite a bit better.

This article on Wikipedia indicates that even currently solar generation exceeds the 2% figure you gave, it's at 2.9% now - so essentially an order of magnitude expansion should be a pretty decent amount of actual output.

Re:Let's do the numbers

[angel'o'sphere]

They cost the same everywhere
No they don't.
Why the fuck would they? You never heard about the fact that not every food grows everywhere? That wages are different? That transport actually costs something?

An Avocado in Germany is about $4. It does not grow here.
A sack of Avocado in Thailand, about 25 pieces, is $2.

Same for rice and any other food like Mango, Papaya, Shrimps/Prawns, Octopus or actually any sea food etc. It gets even more interesting if you go eating in a restaurant. In Thailand I pay for a kingly meal for 3 or 4 persons $25. The same meal would cost me in Germany $300 or $400.

What do you think a box of simple Pasta costs in Thailand? Or olive oil? 10 times as much as in Germany, 20 times as much as in Italy or Spain, 40 times as much as in Greece. Already in Europe the price difference can easy be a factor 4 to 10, from east to west or north to south. Why should a Cheddar cheese from UK cost the same in Paris or Berlin as it does in Manchester? For funk sake, obviously it is more expensive outside of the UK. Why should red wine from Italy or France cost the same in Germany or the UK like in the land of production? Are you really such dumb?

America seems to be focused around cheap food everywhere, so you can not imagine that at other places it is cheaper. However: at many places (first world nations) it is more expensive than in the US. OTOH if we talk about quality food, it seems to be incredible hard to find "affordable" places in the US.