Scope for distributed renewable energy systems in South India

Decentralized electricity generation is gaining importance due to environmental problems with the supply oriented approaches in planning driven by conventional centralized power generation and distribution. Dispersed generation based on renewable energy (RE) sources addresses the issues related with reliability, voltage profile management and associated economic aspects. Micro grids help in exploiting locally available RE sources, which are also the fundamental units of the smart grid architecture. However, available energy potential of the region and seasonal variability assessment is the primary step to map the viable regions for power harvesting. The present study analyses the distributed energy harvesting option for southern states of India by assessing the taluk wise solar and wind energy potential. Power density assessment and variability analysis essentially helps for the investors to architect the generation plants and to optimize the higher energy yielding regions. The paper also describes the use of long term spatial data for renewable potential assessment using open source Geographical Information System (GIS) platform.