Is the promotion of utility scale Solar projects a sustainable solution? The answer disheartened me very much in a workshop and the key reason was the usage of agricultural lands and water for setting up and maintaining the Solar PV plants. I also questioned myself how we can call these Solar plants a source of clean energy when they use natural resource irreversibly. In some cases, the water is brought from a remote location in diesel fuelled tractor and again diesel pumps are used to utilize. Hitherto, the solar PV plants in India were using the water for module cleaning mainly 02 times in a month and the first time the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India has suggested to all the state nodal agencies issuing a letter on 03rd June 2019 to explore the other possibilities and minimize this precious natural resource as much as possible. This approach has potential to kill 02(two) birds by throwing a single stone that is water conservation as well as saving pumping energy in the form of electricity or diesel oil. Through the letter MNRE has commented that the developers are using excess water for module cleaning and need to explore other options like robotic cleaning, anti-soiling coating technology, etc. for reducing the water consumption
