Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit said demand for electricity is growing at the same rate as in France or Germany as millions of people obtain fresh access to power or increase their consumption of power in different parts of the country.

Addressing the Workshop on Advanced Solar PV Technologies and Vendors Meet-2018 at IIT Campus here on Thursday, he said with an unswerving commitment to solar power, India is now emerging as a front-runner in the generation of solar energy.

The Governor said with a population of more than 125 crores, India is the world’s third largest consumer of electricity. He said the Sun is the giver of life and energy to the Universe. Solar energy is a renewable source of energy. It is inexhaustible and non-polluting in nature, he said.

Mr Purohit said rhe conversion of solar energy into electricity is normally done through a photovoltaic cell. He said historically, the United States was the leader of installed photovoltaics for many years, and its total capacity amounted to 77 megawatts in 1996 – more than any other country in the world at that time.

He said Japan remained the world leader in photovoltaics until 2004 when its capacity amounted to 1,132 megawatts. Then, focus on PV deployment shifted to Europe. In 2005, Germany took the lead from Japan. With the introduction of the Renewable Energy Act in 2000, feed-in tariffs were adopted as a policy mechanism.

The Governor said in 2015, China became world’s largest producer of photovoltaic power, and in 2017 became the first country to surpass the 100 GW of cumulative installed PV capacity. China is expected to be the leader in installed PV capacity, and along with India and US, its forecast will constitute the largest markets for solar PV installations in the coming decade.

Mr. Purohit said in India, the total solar power generation capacity increased from 461 MW in 2011 to 6,763 MW in 2016. This has further gone upto 12288.83 MW as of March 21 2017. The installed solar capacity crossed 20 GW in January 2018, with 18.4 GW in the form of ground-mounted projects and 1.6 GW on rooftops. The Solar Power Generation Capacity in the country has increased tremendously mainly due to the favorable Government initiatives coupled with advancements in the manufacturing technology of solar panels, the Governor said.