Climate change and air pollution could dim solar energy prospects in India, says study

With plans to install 100 GW of solar energy by 2030, India has positioned solar energy at the centre of its strategy to mitigate climate change. However, changing weather and high pollution will reduce the efficacy of solar photovoltaics in the future, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

Researchers from the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi used radiation data from global climate models available under the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project – CMIP6 – to analyse the twin impacts of climate change and air pollution on the performance of solar photovoltaics. The CMIP6 is a leading group of models that uses different data sets to project the future impacts of climate change under various emission scenarios.

The study, using data from 1985 to 2014 as a baseline to predict a change from 2041 to 2050, concludes that solar photovoltaics’ efficacy may decrease by 3.3% by the middle of the century. Based on current solar power production levels, the study estimates a loss of 600 to 840 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity annually.

PV power generation at a specific location is determined by the nominal installed PV capacity and the PV potential at that site. The potential depends on...

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