Preventing Photovoltaic Curtailment in India: A Brief Analysis

This paper examines the curtailment of power generated by solar projects which is a big problem in many prominent nations of the world like the USA, China, and Germany. Curtailment means the activity under which the flow of power generated by photovoltaic (PV) is restricted which, therefore, results in the reduced output of the plant and thus the energy wasted which could have been used otherwise. The main reason for curtailment is when the supply of power exceeds its demand and thus power has to be curtailed to stabilize the system. Economic reasons and the inefficiency of transmission infrastructure are among the other reasons for PV curtailment. Some solutions to avoid PV curtailment include load shifting and the use of energy storage devices but both of them are not the perfect solutions to avoid curtailment due to technical and economic reasons. The situations causing increasing levels of PV penetration could give rise to PV curtailment in India soon. The policies could be framed by analysing the PV growth in India by comparing it with those nations where PV energy is already getting curtailed at present time and by analysing the existing policies regarding solar projects and PV curtailment in the nations like China and Germany.