Assam – Disaster Preparedness through Solar Energy
Assam is a multi-hazard State prone to floods, earthquake, storms and landslide besides manmade disasters. Also, the State faces acute flood & erosion problem. Assam has a history of disasters ranging from large earthquakes to severe floods. This is according to the Assam State Disaster Management Authority website.
Although the state is the largest economy of the North East (NE) region, the perennial flood and other disasters become obstacles to the needed infrastructural growth.
The economy of Assam continues to be predominantly agricultural. The contribution of Agriculture sector to the State Domestic Product was more than 25 percent during 2009-10. The state has a number of water bodies and this makes Fishery an important source of economy. Along with this, Livestock and Veterinary are another important sources of economy for the state. The Industrial scenario of the State is mainly confined within the growth of employment oriented Small-Scale Sector, which comprises of manufacturing and processing industries. The contribution of manufacturing sector to Gross State Domestic Product is estimated at around 8% during 2010-11.
But as we mentioned at the beginning, the required infrastructural growth gets hindrance because of the frequent disasters and so the overall progress of the state Assam.
The key aspect among the infrastructures is the availability of quality power which is a dire need for the socio-economic growth of the state. And, what could be the best source of Energy other than Renewable Energy(RE) for this kind of climate vulnerable areas.
Assam amongst other North Eastern states has the highest potential for Solar Energy with an estimated potential of 14 Giga Watt (GW).
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has set a target for Assam to generate 688 Mega Watts (MW) of Renewable Energy by 2022. Almost 99 per cent, i.e. 663 MW of this target is to be met with Solar Energy and the remaining 25 MW from small Hydro Power projects.
Assam’s current installed power generation capacity is 1724 MW of which 1191.77 MW is thermal (403.50 MW generated from coal-based projects and 788.27 MW from gas-based projects), 457.08 MW is Hydropower and 75.34 MW is from RE, primarily the Solar Power. The Assam Solar Energy Policy, 2017 also set the state’s own target of generating 465 MW of grid connected Solar Energy by 2019-20. The target for grid connected Rooftop Solar Power plant under the policy is 110 MW.
Health is another important sector which hugely depends on the energy availability. Primarily the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) across the state. The health centres need both electricity and water. The energy access can ensure both and so the Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) based on Solar Energy can play a key role here.
The Case Study like “Solar Energy has transformed the quality of healthcare available to the char residents, after decades of darkness as mentioned in this “The Wire” article can be referred to have the touch of the ground reality.
Off-grid Solar Power generation has huge potential in the state to take care of the irrigation, home lighting, mobile charging, portable light charging (Torch etc), RO systems to provide clean water, livelihood enterprises, Solar Drying, EV Battery charging station, telecom tower solarisation, etc. The Solar Energy will also make the systems independent of Diesel usages which are not only polluting to the local environment but also contribute to Climate Change through release of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
Here I would like to conclude that the availability and usages of clean technology like Solar is required but will be insufficient if a long -term customer relationship is not planned beforehand in the form of local services provider which has also potential to create jobs at all levels.
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