Abstract
Solar energy technology has gained significant attention in recent years. It has strongly emerged as an alternative to the conventional mode of electricity generation for developing countries like India for their rising energy needs. Solar energy based electricity generation not only addresses environmental concerns but also increases the energy security and reduces the carbon footprints generated by the coal-based power plant. To boost the share of Renewable energy in the energy mix, the renewable energy policy introduced by the government has acted as a catalyst for large scale deployment of solar energy system to push it as the major energy alternative for India. The normal intensity of solar radiation in India is 220 MW per km square with around 300 sunny days in a year, whereas the coal-based plant generates a huge amount of carbon footprints. Therefore, solar based power generation has the potential of not only reducing the emissions and but also it can cater the rising energy demand. Thus solar photovoltaic plants has become a major alternative energy option in India with the ability to give an improved power supply, reduced global warming and enhance the security of energy supply. In this paper, efforts have been made to look into the overall perspective of solar energy and coal based generation by studying and analyzing the present status, technologies use, accessibility, policies interventions, major contributions, future potentials and trends of solar energy and fossil fuels in the Indian power sector. A feasibility analysis of solar technology implementation with the replacement of coal based plant pant is carried out for Singrauli, India. Results of the proposed study shows that the coal-based power plant generates a huge amount of carbon footprints and it can be reduced by replacing the coal based power plants with solar energy based power generation system. Consequently solar energy based power generation system is a key alternative for developing countries like India having metrological parameters similar to the case study done in this paper with the capacity to provide an improved supply, decreased global warming in addition to improving the energy security.