ANNOUNCEMENTS
From a broad perspective, India is a vulnerable country in terms of impacts faced due to climate change, mainly because of its population and dependence on monsoon. That’s the reason it is obliged to reduce its emissions even though it’s per capita GHG emissions are way below in world rankings. In the given scenario, to achieve carbon neutrality or net zero targets it is important to follow a sustainable path for long term productivity. The energy sector contributes more than 70% to CO2 emissions mainly from electricity, heat and transport sectors, this is where renewable energy comes to the rescue. India is expending the production of renewable energy for achieving net zero target by 2070 as announced in COP-26. As a known fact India has set an ambitious goal of producing 500GW for renewable energy by 2030 out of which 280GW is through solar. In the pre-planning phase of setting up solar power plant, suitable land is to be selected based on various features such as terrain, meteorological, solar insolation, distance to roads etc. These factors play a crucial role in generating the power output. Very few studies have been conducted for identifying solar potential for Telangana state which has a good solar irradiance for more than 300 days (about 10 months) a year. I have studied at regional level to accurately identify suitable land for solar plants in acres, which can be used by the developers upon field inspection.
In current study the focus is on identifying the suitable areas for constructing medium scale solar photo voltaic power plants to be connected on-grid. Certain criteria and constraints support or obstruct the suitability of the solar plant which are analyzed in the study. These factors (Hassan et al. 2018) are processed using Geographic Information System which is used for spatial analysis of data. It is important to remember the purpose of using renewables is to mainly generate electricity and meet the increasing energy demand and secondly reduce the GHG emissions. One can't avoid the fact that large amount of empty land is required to set up medium scale solar power plants to meet increasing demand with reduced transmission losses, therefore, to minimize the land use changes and to reduce the socio-ecological impact, proper analysis is performed for site selection. To meet the ambitious goals, one cannot use degraded forest land or land near protected monuments to construct solar plants where the former might reduce the carbon sink capacity negating the purpose of using renewables. Various studies on Energy and Environment [19,20,23] have used a combined approach of using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) framework to analyze the various factors involved to obtain certain goal; To identify suitable zones for construction solar Photo Voltaic (PV). MCDM framework explained by (Saaty 1987) helps in solving any problem statement involving multiple factors or criteria for analysis by weighting or prioritizing. Through MCDM framework, various sites which are highly suitable for constructing solar plants have been identified and validated at Taluk level for Ranga Reddy district. Mainly regions in Yacharam, Kadthal and Manchal Taluks were highly suitable, areas ranging from 5 - 80 acres satisfying power capacity of 1MW to 15MW. The sites were validated through field visits identifying the mixed terrain and solar plant security issues.
