| | AUGUST 20218E conomy and the environment have to go hand in hand for sus-tainable growth. We have paid the price for economic growth at the cost of the environment, resulting in irreversible damages. Global warm-ing and escalating pollution levels have endangered our future. Climate change and natural calamities are be-coming new normal! This is time to act before it esca-lates and impacts our future further. Electricity is a basic need for econom-ic growth, but unfortunately it directly impacts the environment. Traditional sources like fossil fuel are not commercially and environmentally feasible. In addi-tion, fossil fuel is diminishing at an alarming rate. The good news is, renewable energy is a feasible alternative. Solar en-ergy is the answer to these challenges and the world can be much greener without sacrificing economic growth. India is blessed with abundant solar radiation. As per Ministry of New and Renewable energy (MNRE), about 5000 trillion kWh energy is incident on the land area per year with most of the regions receiving 4 to 7 kWh/m2 /day solar energy. According to the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE), India's current solar potential is about 748 GW (as-suming 3% of the wasteland area that can be covered with solar panels). This potential is yet to be harnessed to its full-est. Solar photovoltaic (PV) has huge scalability in India, and can be effectively expanded. Solar energy being abundant, is one of the most secure energy sources and ensures energy security. Hypothetically, out of the total solar energy inci-dent in India, even if a small fraction of it is captured effec-tively, we can meet the country's entire power requirement.To achieve India's renewable energy potential, the Government of India (GOI) has already set a target of 175 Gigawatt(GW) of renewable energy by 2022 and out of which 100 GW is to be achieved by solar power. Out of this 100 GW, 35.13 GW has already been achieved. Furthermore, the gov-ernment has an ambitious target of achieving 450 GW of renewable en-ergy by 2030. With this kind of an-nouncements, it is clear that the policy structure in India is towards adopting renewable energy and obtaining maxi-mum benefit out of it.Furthermore, the Government of India has launched var-ious schemes to encourage power generation across Utility, Industrial, Commercial and Residential sectors. Open access policies for captive as well as utility scale Solar parks, Sus-tainable Rooftop Implementation for Solar Transfiguration ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY AND HARNESSING THE POTENTIAL OF SOLAR POWER IN INDIABy Gautam Das, Co-Founder and CEO, Oorjan Cleantech Private LimitedVANTAGE POINTinstalling a 1 Megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaicpower plant is equivalent to the plantation of 49,000teak wood trees i.e., equivalent to mitigating 31,000 tonnesof Carbon DioxideGautam Das, Co-Founder and CEO
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