This industrial-scale solar water heating array supplies 120,000 litres per day at Godavari Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd. in Andhra Pradesh

Editor’s Note (EcoWorld): Using sunlight to create electrical and thermal energy remains the most promising source of clean renewable energy, and projections as to how quickly solar power takes off could be grossly understated. As the author points out, the costs for photovoltaic electricity, for example, have dropped by an order of magnitude in the last 30 years.

The challenge however lies in just how much energy solar power would have to displace if it were to become the dominant source of energy in the world. In 2006, according to the International Energy Agency, 80.3% of the world’s energy came from fossil fuel: Oil (34.3%), coal (25.1%) and gas (20.9%). Fully 90.9% of the world’s energy came from combustion, because alongside these fossil fuels in 4th place are “combustible renewables,” mostly wood (10.6%). Include nuclear power (6.5%) and hydro-electric power (2.2%), and you have accounted for 99.5% of the world’s energy!

So where does solar fit into this equation? Most of this last half-percent of one percent of the world’s energy, .41%, is provided from geothermal sources. The energy we love so much, wind and solar, currently only provide .064% and .039% of the world’s power requirements. Put another way, for solar energy achieve its potential and replace all other sources of energy in the world, this .039% would have to increase 2,500 times.

Moreover, since nations such as India and China have only begun to industrialize, and since the industrialized nations only comprise approximately 20% of the world’s population yet consume over 50% of the world’s energy production, it is unlikely that global energy production will not have to increase. It is these sobering realities that should inform any reading of the potential of solar power. - Ed “Redwood” Ring

India’s Solar Power - Greening India’s Future Energy Demand

http://asiacleantech.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/indias-solar-power/