It has been felt for past some time that there is really dirth of people in India having sufficient skills for designing solar thermal power plants. Those who have the skill set, keep it close to their chest due to the fear of loosing business opportunity if they share the knowledge with others.

On the other hand, government has already announced plans to accelerate the installation in solar thermal power sector. I suspect that with acute shortage of trained manpower, we would be hiring foreign consultants for designing our plant, who may not be well conversant with the local issues that sometimes significantly govern the design decisions.

This is not just going to result into less ROI as compared to the enviaaged one, more importantly, my fear is that this would spread a wrong message that solar energy is not economically harnessable through thermal power route.

In my opinion, educational institutions like NITs, IITs, should come forward and take part in capacity building in this area. If there are no or very few trainers, MNRE should get the trainers trained in leading labs worldwide, and then plunge into massive training spree.

Have fun till the sun lasts,
Jyotirmay Mathur