Centre of Excellence for Renewable Energy in IIT Jodhpur

A new ‘Centre of Excellence for Renewable Energy’ has been launched in IIT Jodhpur ’s Technology Park. The new initiative is in association with the Rajasthan Solar Association (RSA) which signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IIT.

The new association of the RSA with IIT Jodhpur will pave the way for the Technology Park to emerge as a manufacturing hub. This is expected to be beneficial for students, professionals and other stakeholders. New courses and programs in the renewables domain will also be created to generate skilled manpower for the sector. India is on the verge os a major expansion of its solar manufacturing capabilities, on the back of a large PLI scheme as well as tariff protection for domestic manufacturing starting April 2022. Domestic module capacity, is expected to grow almost 9 fold from 2018 levels to over 45 GW by 2025. Export markets will be a key target of this new capacity addition. 

The IIT initiative is going to focus on research and development on avenues like remote monitoring, advanced electronics, solar, wind, solar-wind hybrid, panel technologies, polysilicon, artificial intelligence, solar thermal and so on. IIT Jodhpur Director, Professor Santanu Chaudhury opined on the occasion, “renewable energy is today game changing and the coming together of the industry consortium and IIT Jodhpur is a landmark. We are trying to create an opportunity and possibility of use of solar power in a variety of other applications. It would be critical in the context of Rajasthan as to how to convert brackish water into potable water using solar thermal as a source of energy as Rajasthan has most of the underground water is brackish.”

Rajasthan Solar Association president Sunil Kumar held, “Solar industry is the lifeline of Rajasthan. Currently 33 GW solar power generation is in the pipeline that will be completed in the coming two to three years. We want to see the acceleration of solar industries in Rajasthan so that lots of manufacturers and MSMEs can come forward and set up manufacturing units in the Technology Park – particularly the electronics component which is being imported right now.”

He also added that their solar association already has signed a MoU with the German government that will help up-skilling of students. This initiative is expected to connect academia with the industry that will take the solar energy sector in the state to higher levels.