Jharkhand Journal of Development and Management Studies

XISS, Ranchi, Vol. 17, No.2, June 2019, pp. 8115-8125

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF SOLAR
ENERGY: A VIEW POINT WITH REFERENCE TO INDIA
Abhishek Gawande1 & Pradeep Chaudhry2

Energy is a basic requirement for economic development and it is

an integral part of every sector of Indian economy. Renewable
energy is increasingly seen as the energy choice of the future as it
offers an alternative yet effective solution to r educe c arbon
emissions and minimize the tradeoffs between environment and
energy development. India is increasingly adopting responsible
renewable energy technologies and taking positive steps towards
carbon emissions, cleaning the air and ensuring a more sustainable
future. A large body of literature addressing the issues regarding
large negative environmental externalities caused by electricity
generation from fossil fuels based energy is available; yet, literature
dealing with environmental and social impacts of solar power plants,
especially in developing countries like India is almost absent. This
study is e xpe cted to c ontribute to war ds filling this gap by
synthesizing information about the environmental and social impacts
of the solar power projects especially in Indian context.

Keywords : Solar Energy, Renewable Energy, Socio-economic

Impacts, Environmental Impact, Biodiversity Conservation.

Introduction

India’s need to increase energy provision for its fast growing population
and economy poses a formidable challenge which can be considered as
both a great opportunity as well as a necessity for the country to
increase the share of renewables in the overall energy mix. At present
India is sixth largest country in the world in electricity generation,
having total installed capacity of 3,43,899 MW out of which 65% is
from thermal, 13 % from hydro, 2 % from nuclear and the rest about
20 % is from renewable energy sources (MoP, 2018). Although over the
years, Indian power sector has experienced a five-time increase in its
installed capacity—a jump from 30,000 MW in 1981 to over 343,899.40
MW (MoP, 2018) by 19 July 2018 but still there is a huge gap in
generation and demand in India hence there is a need to establish
more generation plants preferably to come from renewable sources by
government as well as various private sector participation (Sharma,
Tiwari & Sood, 2012). In order to mitigate the impacts of climate
change and meet the ever growing demands of energy, the government
of India is promoting renewable energy technologies as an effective
1
PGDFM Student (2017-19), Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru
Nagar, Bhopal. Email : gawandeabhishek4@[Link] / argawande19@[Link]
2
Professor, Technical Forestry, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Nehru
Nagar, Bhopal. Email: pradeep@[Link]

8115
8116 Gawande & Chaudhry

tool to secure the energy future sustainably. It has also set an ambitious
target of 175 GW renewable energy capacity to be achieved by the year
2022 (Kumar & Thapar, 2017).
Electricity generation from renewable is getting more attention
in the context of large negative environmental externalities caused by
electricity generation from fossil fuels based energy. Managing
environmental and its social impacts have been drawing considerable
attention in policy-making, project development, and operations
(Sharma, Tiwari & Sood, 2012). New renewable energy sources (solar
energy, wind energy, modern bio-energy, geothermal energy, and small
hydropower) are currently contributing only about two percent. A
significant number of studies have already investigated the potential
contribution of renewables to the global energy supplies, indicating
that in the second half of the 21st century their contribution might
range from the present figure of nearly 20% to more than 50% with
the right policies in place. The potential of renewable energy sources is
enormous as they can in principle meet many times the world’s energy
demand (Akella, Saini & Sharma, 2009). There is no dearth of literature
commenting on environmental and social impacts of coal based and
nuclear power generation activities but little has been mentioned about
such effects with respect to wind energy and solar energy.

Objectives and Methodology

The current paper deals with environmental and social impacts of

solar power generation in India and an analysis has been made with
the help of primary as well as secondary data. The overall framework
of the study is based on an extensive literature review to develop a
general understanding of the impacts associated with solar power
projects in the Indian context. The secondary research was carried
with the help of various government reports, peer reviewed journals,
international studies and articles. Then, few selected project sites
were visited to develop a first-hand understanding about the impacts
of solar power projects. This was done with the help of personal
interviews, observations and focus group discussion based on a
structured open-ended questionnaire.
The various stakeholders identified were the project developer
company, surrounding communities, forest department and the local
government. The discussions with the various stakeholders resulted
in knowing the perspective of different parties towards solar energy
projects and also to understand the benefits, impacts, issues and
challenges associated with such projects. The type of research was
qualitative and descriptive in nature and the selection of site was done
considering the different parameters such as geographical location,
Environmental and Social Impacts of Solar Energy: 8117

hilly and forested terrain, proximity to the surrounding villages and

water deficit areas.
Findings and Analysis
Environmental impacts of solar power
Though solar power offers a clean, environment friendly and infinite
source of energy in comparison to conventional energy sources, yet it
can not necessarily be a green source of energy, as there are potential
environmental and socio-economic impacts associated with solar power
which cannot be ignored. The magnitude and impacts of a solar power
plant may vary during the various stages such as construction,
operation and decommissioning. In India, solar photovoltaic and wind
energy projects are not covered under the ambit of Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) notification 2006 and no environment
clearance is needed for such projects under the provisions thereof. The
Ministry of Environment, forests and Climate change (MoEF & CC)
Government of India has placed wind and solar PV projects under
‘white category’ industries, which are exempted from obtaining ‘consent
to operate’ from the concerned state pollution control board ((Kumar &
Thapar, 2017). However, it exerts significant pressure on the land,
water and surrounding communities. In this regards it becomes
important to identify and assess the potential impacts associated with
solar power as India is poised to become a global leader in solar power
by 2022. Following are some of the major direct/ indirect environmental
and social impacts of solar power:
Environmental impacts of solar power farms
Land use
Solar plants are land intensive as they require large chunk of land to
accommodate the solar panels. Large scale utilization of the land may
also affect the thermal balance of the area as the site would absorb
more energy as compared to other areas.
On an average, roughly two hectares of land per MW is required
for installing solar panels. As per the 18 solar PV projects analyzed by
CSE, it is estimated that the average land size per MW comes out to be
7.58 acres or 3.06 Ha (Bhushan & Hemberg, 2012). As per the Ministry
of New and Renewable energy (MNRE), Government of India’s report,
the land requirements for crystalline and thin film-based PV farms
are 6 and 7 acres per MW respectively (MNRE, 2013).
India has target of installing one lakh MW of solar power by
2030 for which over five lakh acres of land would be required (DTE,
2016).As per one of the studies published in Current Science, it is
estimated that approximately 3.1% of the total uncultivable land area
in the country would be required to meet the future energy demands
8118 Gawande & Chaudhry

by means of solar power (Dhanpal, 2015).This becomes a growing

concern especially in developing country like India since the land is
scarce and heavily contested (Bhushan and Hemberg, 2012).
The construction of 235 MW solar energy project on a sacred
land (Askandra, District Jaisalmer, Rajasthan), which was reserved
for the local goddess Joyamati resulted in tensions among local
communities and the project developers in [Link] area over which
farmers were protesting for allotment of the land since the past 40
years was unfortunately allotted to a private company within just few
months. As per the village elders, “It’s not like we couldn’t have used
the land if we wanted, parts of it could have been farmed but it is
sacred land and no one else can use it.” Villagers also complained that
Khejri (Prosopis cineraria), which is the state tree of Rajasthan, of
which the villagers don’t even pluck a single branch, was unfortunately
getting uprooted for the construction of solar site (Bhushan & Hemberg,
2012).
Water use
Water footprint of both solar PV and solar thermal plants is very high.
In order to ensure high performance, solar projects require large
quantities of water for cleaning of solar panels and cooling purposes.
It is estimated that approximately 110 milliliters of water per
kilowatt hour is required for cleaning solar panels (Energy matter,
2009). The Acme Telepower solar thermal plant in Bikaner uses
20,000 litre of water for producing 7 MWh electricity per day. This
would mean a usage of 2,857 litre of water per MWh (Bhushan &
Hemberg, 2012).
The main problem here is that the solar projects generally get
established in dry and hot areas where already there is water scarcity.
Such project sites invariably fall under low rainfall regions where the
average cloud cover is minimal. This becomes especially important in
a developing country like India where water is one of the most valuable
and scarce resource. The problem gets bigger in size as the water usage
goes up during the dry season. For ensuring water requirements, solar
farms may tap into local water bodies, thus affecting surface & ground
water and also the water availability to the local community. This
may result in conflicting situation with the nearby communities residing
in vicinity of the project site.
Biodiversity
The solar farm can affect the local biodiversity in many ways. The
vegetation is cleared off during the construction phase or the natural
habitat is disturbed because of the physical barriers created by solar
farm. Since the solar farms occupy large tracks of land, it may cause
Environmental and Social Impacts of Solar Energy: 8119

linear fragmentation of the habitat and disturb the free movement of

wildlife in the area. It has also been observed in some cases that
installation of solar farms altered the local climate by altering the
temperature and changing the rainfall distribution pattern (Armstrong,
2014). In Rajasthan like desert state of India, large areas and fencing
of solar parks, may hamper movements of Great Indian bustard (locally
called Godawan), antelopes like black buck and chinkara.
Disposal of waste
One of the biggest problems from solar power generation is the
tremendous amount of hazardous and toxic e-waste generated out of
the solar panels at the end of their life. The life of panels is quite short
around 20-25 years. So, one of the growing concerns is about what
would happen to solar panels once they complete its lifespan and are
not able to generate power.
Assuming that an average panel is sized 250 watts, thus
generating 100 GW of solar power would amount to 77.6 lakh tonnes of
e-waste at the end of a lifetime of a solar plant. Now the biggest challenge
is posed by how India will treat this enormous amount of e-waste as
India as such has no plans for disposal of such huge amount of e-waste
that the solar sector will generate (Kumarankandath, 2016). Japan is
already expected to pile up 10,000 tons of solar-panel waste by 2020
and scrambling on ways to reuse the panels. Not only these solar panels
are a source of e-waste but also pose a great concern as they are
hazardous in nature (Kelly, 2017).
As per Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental
Progress, “We talk a lot about the dangers of nuclear waste, but that
waste is carefully monitored, regulated, and disposed of. But we had
no idea there would be so many panels — an enormous amount — that
could cause this much ecological damage” (Kelly, 2017).
It is interesting to note that India is 5th largest producer of E-
waste and generates 2 million tonnes of e-waste every year. India’s e-
waste production is growing rapidly and it is likely to touch 3 million
tonnes in 2018 (Vyawahare, 2017).Despite the fact, none of the policies
deal with the methodology for proper disposal of solar cells, as per the
E-Waste Management rules, 2016 notified by the Ministry of
Env ironment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF & CC)
(Kumarankandath, 2016). As of now, this issue is out of focus and
majorly neglected since the waste would get accumulated only after
20-25 years.
According to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE),
it is the responsibility of the project developers for the disposal off solar
PV cells and modules. It further states that “the developers will ensure
8120 Gawande & Chaudhry

that all solar PV modules collected from their plant after their ‘end of
life’ (when they become defective/non-operational/non-repairable) are
disposed off in accordance with the ‘e-waste (Management and Handling)
Rules’ notified by the government and as revised and amended from
time to time” (Kumarankandath, 2016). But surprisingly there is no
mention in the rules with regards to disposal of solar cells which the
ministry is referring to.

Socio-economic impacts of solar power farms

Community concerns
The main problem that the surrounding communities face from the
establishment of solar power plants is the change in land use and
water usage. Large scale solar plants require significant amount of
land which may result in conflict with the surrounding communities.
Not involving these communities in development and operation of solar
farms is another concern of the communities. Many solar power
developers face concerns regarding land acquisition from the
communities. The CEO of Moser Baer, K N Subramaniam, says that
three-four out of the ten projects are facing protests from the villagers
as the communities claim that the land on which the project is sited
belongs to them. Inderpreet Wadhwa, head of Azure Solar, says that
the land acquisition issues are enormous. He states that “We can build
a plant in four-six months but resolving the land issues still takes
two-three years” (Bhushan & Hemberg, 2012).
In Rajasthan, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Delhi
researchers have found that much of the revenue land owned by state
government is used by the local communities for common grazing land
or for NTFP collection. They reported 12 such cases where solar power
plants were setup on traditional community land (Bhushan &
Hemberg, 2012).
Most villages, towns and hamlets located in the vicinity of the
solar power plants do not have electricity or electricity supply only for
limited two-three hours per day. This is because the project developers
have no incentive for distributing the power locally, so they do not
share the extra benefits with the communities living nearby plant
area. In one of the instances visited by CSE researchers, it was observed
that the 5-MW solar power plant in Bap, District Jodhpur Rajasthan
had no impact, neither positive nor negative, on the nearby Muslim
community named Mujo Ki Dhani Chak. It was found that the
community had no contact with the solar plant and they were indifferent
towards the solar plant operations. Although living within vicinity of
one of the advanced energy sources in the world, but the communities
were still using firewood for cooking and kerosene for lighting. The
Environmental and Social Impacts of Solar Energy: 8121

villagers were not being employed at the plant site as the contractors
were hiring from the nearby cities like Jodhpur. They were not even
being employed for unskilled jobs such as security guards. Moreover,
the village was not connected to grid so they cannot utilize the electricity
from the plant. In addition, the traffic and prices of land in the area
shoot up after the establishment of solar plant (Bhushan & Hemberg,
2012).

Employment

During a study conducted by CSE, it was observed that some villagers

complained that the locals were not employed in the solar power
activities ((Bhushan & Hemberg, 2012).The operation and maintenance
of solar farms requires skilled manpower which is generally unavailable
in the surrounding villages. As a result of which the developer companies
rely on contractors who bring in skilled workers from different cities
instead of employing locals. This results in unemployment and a cause
of concern in the surrounding communities.

Moreover, in a study undertaken at Gujarat state, it was found

that the farmers sell their land for the establishment of solar plants
and take a lump sum amount, but very often this puts them in despair
as they are not able to find alternate source of livelihood, thus leading
to poverty in the long run (Bhushan & Hemberg, 2012).

Occupational health and safety impacts

There are several pollutants occurring in solar cells and parts which
inc lude arsen ic, chrome, lead an d cadmium in batter ies
(Kumarankandath, 2016).Solar power plants are potential sources of
two toxic chemicals viz. Cadmium Tellurium (CdTe) and Lead (Pb). It
is estimated that all of the thin films made by the American company
First Solar, which uses CdTe technology is being sourced to India. One
of the growing concerns is because CdTe is a toxic material and a lung
carcinogen, long term exposures to which can cause serious effects on
kidney and bone. Usage of lead in batteries is another source of pollution
(MNRE, 2013).

Observations from Project Sites

In order to assess the potential impacts and issues associated with

solar power projects, the first author paid a special visit to a site near
Dhabla Village in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh state. There were
total five units installed with a capacity of around 25 MW and the first
unit was commissioned in 2014 (Figure 1). The co-ordinates of the site
8122 Gawande & Chaudhry

were 23.0155-degree N 77.0339-degreeE and the nearest village named

Dhabla was located at a distance of 3 km from the project site.

Figure 1: Solar Farm Site at village Dhabla, M.P. State, India

During a focus group discussion (FGD) with the villagers (Figure

2), it was found that the solar power project turned out to be beneficial
for the villagers. There were no major adverse impacts reported due
the installation of solar farms. The type of landscape on which the
project is sited was mostly a barren and rocky land with no vegetation
potential.

Figure 2: Focused group discussion with villagers

Environmental and Social Impacts of Solar Energy: 8123

Few issues arose out of FGD, most important is about high land
footprint associated with solar plants. It was observed that around 5-6
acres of land is required for producing 1 MW of solar power. The lands
may come into conflict with the communities especially if the project
is sited on agricultural lands. Secondly, huge amount of water is
required for cleaning the solar panels daily. During the discussion
with the company personnel at the site, it was reported that
approximately 6000-8000 liters of water is required daily for producing
1 MW power. Though the water consumption of the project is huge,
but the company has made the agreement with the local villager for
the water requirements.
Another most important issue was about long term risks
associated with the solar panels due to their hazardous nature. It was
found that the life of the panels is around 20-25 years. The company
personnel were unsure when asked about what would happen to the
panels at the end of its life. They said that there is hardly any solar
site in India which has completed its tenure, so nobody is thinking of
such long term. Moreover, there are no policies in India related to
disposal of hazardous waste being generated at the end of life of solar
panels.

Considering the limited period of study duration, it was not

possible for the main author to visit several solar project sites. Thus,
only a few select sites were visited during the course of the study in
the state of Madhya Pradesh. Thus, this study may not be representative
of all the solar projects operating in the country.

It is felt by the authors that EIA study should be a must for

these projects especially regarding the use of water in a desert state
like that of the Rajasthan in India where on an average, there are 3
severe famine years every 10 years, affecting a large population,
and resulting in high spending of government revenue (Chaudhry,
Bohra & Chaudhary, 2011). As per another estimate, 43 out of last
50 years have been drought years (Rajasthan Govt, 2009). Under such
circumstances, water requirement need to be audited. Rain water
harvesting structures near such plants are generally absent in Indian
states and their construction should be made mandatory to meet
water requirements for washing solar panels at regular intervals.
Secondly, lot of desert biodiversity is disturbed due to installation of
solar plants and its loss need to be accounted for in the benefit cost
analysis before establishing such plants. Biodiversity economics is
generally ignored now in the absence of EIA study for establishing
solar power plants in India. In this regard, a decision support system
tool which scientifically assesses the sites based on its resource,
economic, technical, environmental and social potential could come in
8124 Gawande & Chaudhry

handy to minimize the trade-offs between the renewable energy

development and the environment. In a way, it will address the
existing gaps and strengthen India’s planning framework for renewable
energy development.

Conclusion
Though the environmental impact of solar energy systems is a
controversial topic, yet the literature review and outcome of the field
visits confirms that the solar energy systems have potential negative
impacts too besides being a clean and green renewable source of energy.
These issues may seem minor at present in Indian situation, but it
may cause disastrous effects in the future when solar energy systems
become the main sources of energy. This is not to discourage or discard
the renewable energy development. Only thing is that they should be
carried out after proper assessment of their environmental and socio-
economic impacts.
The negative impacts could be minimized with appropriate
measures. The developers and regulatory authorities should take
into account the dependence of local populations upon natural resources
for their livelihood while encouraging renewable energy development.
Some probable solutions also include making EIA studies mandatory
for all renewable energy projects; giving greater powers to the village
level panchayats; providing employment to locals and ensuring
electricity access for the people who live in vicinity of renewable
energy projects.
At present India lacks the necessary planning framework and
the renewable energy development is taking place in an unplanned,
project-by-project fashion that fails to account for landscape-scale
implications. Greater emphasis needs to be given on holistic and
scientific planning of the landscape to avoid or minimize the negative
impacts of renewable energy development on the surrounding people
and the environment. Though landscape scale planning is relatively a
new concept in India, but the seeds of the next energy economy must
be sown now as the implications of today’s decisions will influence
India’s energy future for decades.

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