Comments of the Sierra Club, Lodging of NETL studies on life cycle and air emissions under CP09-6.

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES The Rising Sun Grid parity gets closer A point of view on the Solar Energy sector in India September 2012 kpmg.com/in Foreword The Solar PV industry has seen dynamic changes in the last This year, our report focuses on the solar cost trends and twelve months. Module prices have seen precipitous fall thereby looks at segments of the market which are most suitable for encouraging forecasts of early grid parity; while at the same time, adoption of solar power within the coming few years. Given the this has raised concerns about the health of the manufacturing financial position of the power utilities, we believe that rooftop sector and sustainability of the cost reductions. In our last report market for customer segments that already see parity with released in May 2011, we anticipated that utility-scale grid parity utility power tariffs has the potential to be a game changer in in the timeframe of 2017-2019 for India. We now believe it is likely the coming five years. Within rooftop, the solar lease model is to occur at the earlier end of that range and therefore solar power becoming attractive in the Indian market. Given the fuel, land presents a potential disruptive change in our energy scenario. and environment challenges that the country is facing in setting This could help India leapfrog the energy technology space, up new power capacity, we feel that the state governments, and enable solar power to make a meaningful and substantive utilities and regulators should encourage this market to realize contribution to our energy scene by the end of this decade. Policy its potential by providing critical enablers such as net metering makers need to take serious note of this potential. infrastructure, banking facility and developing an ecosystem for rooftop market installations. The National Solar Mission has triggered the development of solar ecosystem capacity in India in the last two years. Indias solar capacity has grown from less than 20 MW to more than 1,000 MW in the last two years1. The seeds have been sown and investments in capability building have been made. What is now needed is that the green shoots have to be nurtured; else, we could see them die away, putting significant national resources to waste. We believe that the Government should keep the momentum going by providing sufficient clarity on the market, announcing the next phase of the NSM quickly and ...