India tops McKinsey & Company energy report

India, along with the US, has emerged as the world’s topmost solar power generator, according to the recent McKinsey & Company survey.

Concluded in May 2009, the energy research reveals that India has one of the highest solar intensities in the world, yielding an installed solar energy capacity of 1,700 to 1,900kWh/kWp per year. Spain placed second in the ranking with 1,500 to 1,600 kWh/kWp followed by Italy, Australia, China, Japan and Germany.

The McKinsey report also stated that the country’s biomass potential could soar up to 70GW and agro-waste as high as 18GW. In addition, the research informed that cultivating cottonwoods and poplars from an 80-million hectare land in India could produce 45 to 50GW of power.

Meanwhile, India ranked fifth at the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Survey data show that the US contributes 20.7 per cent to the world’s total wind energy, while India produces eight per cent.

According also to Ernst & Young, India’s renewable energy attractiveness index remains one of the world’s top five. Ernst & Young based its ranking on regulatory environment, unexploited resources, fiscal support, suitability to various technologies and other renewable energy determining factors.

Besides from wind and solar industries, India’s index for the development of renewable energy sources in the hydropower sector is the fourth highest in the world, just after the US, Germany and China; while the country’s biomass development index is positioned third in the survey, just behind of the US and Germany.