A Bright Answer

Recently, India experienced the largest power outage in the history of the world. While power outages are common, almost routine, in various parts of India, from small villages to large cities like Delhi and Mumbai, this power outage was beyond the scale of what had come before. Nearly twenty of India’s twenty-eight states were affected, with estimates of around 680 million people – that is, nearly 10% of the world’s population – being left in the dark. As three of the five power grids in India failed, trains were stalled, traffic lights stopped working, surgical operations were cancelled, miners were trapped underground, and the urgent need to find sustainable solutions to India’s growing need for electricity became glaring in the darkness.

Yet, there are solutions to this problem; this need not continue. Namely, the solution lies in solar power. In India, the sun shines brightly for nine to ten months of the year, providing an infinite source of energy that only needs to be tapped and harvested. Not only is this source inexhaustible, but it is truly an environmentally-sound and cost-effective technology for gathering power as well. While dams and hydroelectric projects abrupt the free-flow of India’s sacred rivers such as the Ganga, solar power plants have no such effect. While conventional forms of fuel such as oil and coal rely on finite sources, and sources which greatly destroy the environment, solar energy is infinite and requires no such devastation. Additionally, with the new technologies and achievements being made in the field of solar energy, the cost of such a project is falling, and the direct expenditure for solar power productions is estimated to be less than conventional methods.

And the best thing yet – this technology already exists and is being used here in India. In Haryana and Rajasthan, solar energy is being tapped on a small scale for agricultural purposes. All we need now is to implement this technology on a larger scale, to turn solar power into a viable energy source to serve the nations’ millions who are in need of electricity.