ANNOUNCEMENTS
One of the most popular technologies, among the prevalent RE technologies that support low carbon growth trajectories across the globe is the Solar PV technology that is being used at an accelerated rate to provide access to energy to people of not just the developed economies but also Least Developed Countries (LDC’s) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS’s) of the world. The reason for the same are lower production and maintenance costs which enable competitive tariffs when compared to other RE technologies. The competitive pricing of the energy from Solar PV also drives national and global policies to promote the technology which can further bring down solar PV equipment manufacture costs and also solar PV generated electricity tariffs. In view of globalization of today’s economy, it has become increasingly important to not just collect relevant data but also analyze it properly, draw insights and document all of it in the form reports. In this activity one of the key steps is the selection of indicators which will capture all aspects that are desirable to be covered (depending on the scope of use) and establishing primary and secondary data sources to report against these indicators. The reported data against these carefully selected indicators and its analysis can help us get an overall picture of regional or global scenarios, trends, scope and area of growth, future targets and revisions in current targets, etc. Keeping this in mind, a databank with a total of 92 indicators is developed and suggested to the Secretariat of International Solar Alliance (ISA) for use. Amongst the 92 indicators, 66 indicators have been directly borrowed from one of the flagship reports that EY develops for ISA every year, namely the ‘Ease of Doing Solar’ or ‘EoDS’ report. These indicators use secondary data points from a number of other reports published by IEA, IRENA, World Bank, GOGLA, Lighting Global and other databases like Global Solar Atlas, etc. These indicators are categorized into 7 drivers for ease of assessment and data representation in the final report. The 7 drivers namely are: Macro-Economy, Policy Enablers, Financing, Technological Feasibility, Infrastructure, Energy Imperatives and Power Market Maturity.
Keeping in mind the work of ISA and the current focus and trends of the global economy to decentralize the supply chains of Solar PV Power Systems, a new driver that assesses the Manufacture, Installation, Maintenance and Recycle stages of PVPS deployment specific to member countries was introduced and suggested along with addition of a few indicators to the existing 7 drivers. The indicators in the suggested driver covered aspects of manufacture of solar PVPS equipment like modules, inverters, etc; the assessment of availability of raw material and critical mineral required for the manufacture of cells, modules, inverters, DC cables, etc; aspects of energy and financial performance of projects and end of life use of PVPS equipment. The introduction of this driver along with the indicators will not only help ISA cover more aspects of solar deployment but also help it map out solar technology project performance in terms of finances and energy. The inclusion of the suggested indicators shall also help in recording the solar energy transition of member countries in a more structured and scientific manner. The report maintains a key focus on the manufacture, plant performance, and techno-commercial viability to assess the feasibility of doing business for soler PV deployments within a region or country of interest.
Keywords: Solar PV, Indicators, NPV, Plant Performance, Drivers, Manufacture, Recycle, etc.
