During the last decade, energy demand has increased manifold in India. To cope up with the rising energy demand, the Indian government has announced the National Solar Mission to generate 100 GW solar power by 2022. Large-scale solar power developers have been allotted around 60% of the National Solar Mission target. Therefore, it becomes pivotal to find the ground reality of solar power developers. To fulfill this objective, we selected the solar sources of the country and adopted a hybrid research methodology. The solar irradiation data were collected for one year in the four big cities of India, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore during 2019 to evaluate the efficiency of photovoltaics (PVs). MATLAB and RETScreen were employed for data analysis and evaluating the efficiency of photovoltaics. We take this a step further by performing the Life Cycle Assessment analysis to scrutinize the different features of solar energy, including fuel consumption, price, average lifetime, maintenance and operation expenses, land requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions. The results reveal that all these cities have an enormous solar power potential, as they are located in an area where solar irradiations are consistently available all over the year (except for monsoon season). Moreover, solar energy is more durable, cost-saving, and easy to maintain. Furthermore, we identified the significant barriers over the whole solar energy spectrum by conducting semi-structured interviews with industry experts. These barriers are broadly classified into technological, policy, regulatory, financial, transparency, accountability, infrastructural, and trade policy categories. Finally, essential policy recommendations have been suggested for all stakeholders in order to fulfill the country's energy demand on its way to a future of sustainable development.

中文翻译：

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印度能源动态评估：太阳能的前景

在过去十年中，印度的能源需求成倍增长。为了应对不断增长的能源需求，印度政府宣布了到 2022 年产生 100 吉瓦太阳能的国家太阳能计划。大型太阳能开发商已分配到国家太阳能计划目标的 60% 左右。因此，找到太阳能开发商的地面现实变得至关重要。为了实现这一目标，我们选择了该国的太阳能资源并采用了混合研究方法。2019 年在印度四大城市孟买、新德里、钦奈和班加罗尔收集了为期一年的太阳辐射数据，以评估光伏 (PV) 的效率。采用MATLAB和RETScreen进行数据分析和光伏效率评估。我们通过进行生命周期评估分析来进一步检查太阳能的不同特征，包括燃料消耗、价格、平均寿命、维护和运营费用、土地要求和温室气体排放。结果表明，所有这些城市都具有巨大的太阳能潜力，因为它们位于全年（季风季节除外）太阳辐射持续可用的地区。而且，太阳能更耐用、更省钱、更容易维护。此外，我们通过与行业专家进行半结构化访谈，确定了整个太阳能光谱的重大障碍。这些障碍大致分为技术、政策、监管、财务、透明度、问责制、基础设施、和贸易政策类别。最后，为所有利益相关者提出了必要的政策建议，以满足该国在通往可持续发展未来的道路上的能源需求。