Combining wind and solar — a game changer for India?
Wind-solar hybrid systems offer many advantages over their stand-alone counterparts. The state of Gujarat in particular is investing in the technology. Could it help India cut fossil fuels? Check out the pros and cons of this emerging technology.
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00:00 Babra, in Gujarat, is a town of 25,000 people.
00:07 It doesn't look unusual.
00:09 But when the farmers head out to their fields in the morning, they now pass an imposing
00:15 power plant.
00:17 It's a hybrid solar and wind farm, spanning 650 hectares of land.
00:22 The plant produces clean electricity from wind and the sun at the same time.
00:27 Gujarat offers ideal conditions for the hybrid system.
00:31 Situated near the Tropic of Cancer and the Arabian Sea, it has plenty of wind and more
00:36 than 300 days of sunshine a year.
00:39 Power operators have long since discovered the region.
00:42 Why we chose these locations for wind-solar hybrid projects?
00:48 So this region in terms of the elevation, in terms of the radiation is better.
00:53 So when you compare to other districts in Gujarat, then we found a better elevation
00:59 for WTG generation.
01:01 Hybrid systems offer a decisive advantage.
01:05 By day, they utilise the energy of both the sun and the wind, and even when the sun goes
01:10 down, they still generate power from the wind.
01:14 India has so far commissioned hybrid plants with a capacity of 1.4 gigawatts.
01:19 That's about the equivalent to one and a half modern coal-fired power stations.
01:25 And that volume is expected to increase more than six-fold by the end of next year.
01:31 Experts believe the high investment costs linked to these plants will drop as major
01:36 operators enter the market.
01:38 Ultimately, these large players will help to cut off the cost.
01:43 Dependency on manufacturing will reduce.
01:47 And they will also create the jobs also, and a kind of competition will be created.
01:53 So definitely these large players are required in order to make the system more affordable.
02:00 CleanMax is one such player.
02:02 The company derives about a quarter of its revenues from hybrid solar wind plants.
02:07 Its clean electricity is sold to industrial customers across Gujarat.
02:12 The power plants are also an opportunity for the people of Babra.
02:16 The company says it runs targeted campaigns to recruit workers from the local area.
02:22 Directly or indirectly, 200 or 300 people are currently involved in the CleanMax initiative.
02:30 One can only imagine how many people will be employed once a project begins in full
02:34 swing.
02:36 Around an hour and a half's drive from Babra is the city of Rajkot.
02:41 Piyush Bagadia runs a small company here, manufacturing hybrid systems.
02:47 But these systems are much smaller and designed to work independently of the central power
02:52 grids.
02:53 He tells us how it all began.
02:59 In my village of Durasiya, we used to have problems with electricity.
03:03 We didn't have solar and would experience frequent power cuts.
03:07 In 2010, when I was in grade 10, I made a wind turbine and installed it in my house.
03:13 That's how I started this business.
03:16 Now our power systems go to places that have no other source of electricity.
03:21 They use our off-grid models.
03:29 His company has so far set up systems in schools, forests, tribal zones and coastal areas.
03:36 A typical system like these would cost between 5 and 6 lakh rupees or around 6,600 euros.
03:46 Globally, there's only one option for storage and that is batteries.
03:53 Power can only be saved through a battery.
03:55 But the battery cost is high.
03:57 And so the hybrid model is expensive right now because of the battery.
04:03 Today, Piyush is visiting a client in a city suburb.
04:08 Anand Sankparia runs his own business and has been testing the hybrid system on his
04:13 roof for two months now.
04:16 He was already using solar power before, but now his energy bills are just a quarter of
04:21 what they were.
04:24 One drawback of solar energy was that it only provided power during the day.
04:29 But because I am now using the solar and wind hybrid model, I get an uninterrupted supply
04:34 24 hours a day.
04:36 That's a huge improvement.
04:39 Big name companies still dominate the market for wind-solar hybrid systems.
04:44 But Piyush Bagaria is betting on a future in which smaller firms like his can secure
04:50 a niche to supply the technology for smaller scale use like households.
04:58 The government recently announced a policy for this sector.
05:01 So now those in solar energy will also start manufacturing wind turbines.
05:06 Many people are already preparing for it.
05:09 The market right now has a lot of solar.
05:12 But in about a year, it will be flooded with wind turbines too.
05:16 There will be a lot of competition.
05:26 India is already the world's fourth largest producer of renewable energy, following China,
05:32 the US and Brazil.
05:34 But it still generates most of its electricity by burning fossil fuels.
05:39 The government has an ambitious plan.
05:41 By 2050, it wants half of the electricity generated in the country to come from renewables.
05:48 Experts say hybrid power plants that combine the forces of solar and wind could be key
05:54 to achieving that goal.
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