Solar power can meet a 30 % of India's imported coal requirement: KPMG

Solar power can meet 5-7 per cent of our total power requirements by 2021-22 up from a negligible portion today.

A new thought leadership report, The Rising Sun, by global consulting firm KPMG says solar power could potentially replace around 30 per cent of India's imported coal requirement and cut over 10 per cent of the country's carbon emission restrictions.

The report points out that solar power could help light  remote villages with no grid access,  power telecom towers that currently run on diesel, power irrigation pumps for farming that consume close 60GW of subsidised electricity

''Solar power can help our country move closer to the targeted 20-25 per cent reduction in carbon emission intensity of GDP by 2020 by contributing as much as one-tenth of this target, besides playing an increasingly important role in securing India's energy future'', says Arvind Mahajan, head of energy and ntural resources, KPMG.

Decentralised applications refer to the small scale solar power solutions installed at the consumer end.

Unlike centralised power generation systems where large power plants are typically set up near fuel sources or far away from load centres, decentralised power systems are situated close to where the demand is.