1. Solar deployment creates employment opportunities in India. New solar projects must be designed, constructed, connected to the grid, and maintained, and the majority of these tasks must be undertaken locally. The analysis shows that increasing the installed capacity base of solar PV power generation in the country creates long term employment in the country. Continuous and sustained addition to existing installed capacity increases short term employment as well. 2. Projects of 1 to 5 MW capacity have the greatest employment generating potential. Our analysis shows that the highest number of FTE jobs per MW is generated by projects with a capacity of 1 to 5 MW. Increases in project size reduce the human resources required per MW to execute a project. To continue higher potential job creation rates, national policy on solar should continue to focus on smaller-size projects, as it has in the past phases of the NSM. The flip side to this argument concerns the economies of scale that a developer may experience by investing in a project with relatively larger capacities. Viability, and hence the cost of financing a project, depend significantly on the per-unit cost of power produced, which may be optimized at greater scale. There is a need, therefore, to find the optimum average capacity for projects to maximize employment generation potential while being mindful of project feasibility and benefits that could accrue from economies of scale. 3. Construction and commissioning generate the most employment for a PV project. The analysis shows that construction and commissioning generate most employment during the entire life cycle of a project. Although many tout the employment benefits of solar manufacturing, experts have expressed skepticism about the extent to which increased manufacturing capacity creates sustained employment benefits.34 They argue that manufacturing is increasingly automated, so employment in the manufacturing sector is actually decreasing, not increasing.35 Also, India’s domestic manufacturing capacity has increased only marginally since 2010, so any job growth associated with increased capacity is likely to also be marginal.36
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:00:35 +0000
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