Solar energy can fill demand-supply gap of power: Kakodkar

"The need of energy will always exceed the supply and for this we will have to keep looking for alternative sources of energy," said Kakodkar, the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India.

"And solar energy is a big hope in meeting this ever growing demand of energy," he said.

He termed the solar energy as a future source of energy amidst the growing demand of power.

Kakodkar, currently chairman of the Solar Energy Corporation of India, was in Jodhpur today with his team for discussions with the IIT-Jaipur on solar energy research.

The IIT-J has set up a Centre of Excellence to further the research and experiment on the solar energy in the Western Rajasthan and has set up a solar thermal plant.

Kakodkar said after developing a demonstration facility of the solar thermal set up, we will resort to continuous research on it.

Terming the demand-supply gap of energy to be eternal, Kakodkar said the need of energy will always exceed the supply and for this we will have to keep looking for alternative sources of energy.

IIT Jodhpur has earmarked a 200-acre land on its campus for creating a solar park, comprising various technologies under one roof.

A cluster of R&D labs for solar thermal research shall be established in this solar park under the Research grant obtained from the MNRE (Government of India).

An international centre for solar energy technologies is planned to be set up on the IIT Jodhpur campus with the technical assistance and grant from ADB (Asian Development Bank) for capacity building and for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the filed of Solar Energy.