K.P. Eashwar

India has, during the last twenty years, produced an amazing array of new kind of solar energy inventions. Among them are second-generation pumped storage hydropower plants, ultra-cheap solar space heaters, many kinds of floating solar power installations and solar cookers that can be used inside, after the sun has set.

India's already existing, extremely affordable solar technologies - and numerous other inventions coming after them - will play a crucial and perhaps decisive role in the fight against global warming, if they spread to other continents in a large scale.

India's solar technologies can accelerate the electric vehicle revolution, produce carbon-negative power, eliminate the need of water in cleaning solar panels and solve the problems related to storing wind and solar electricity. They could reduce or eliminate methane emissions from reservoirs and eutrophic lakes, provide rural schools with clean water and reduce pressure on forests and other vegetation, thus increasing the amount of carbon stored in natural ecosystems. They could reduce the evaporation of water from irrigation channels and produce food and solar power on the same patches of land.

At the same time India' s new solar technologies can eliminate deep poverty and reduce air pollution, which is currently causing nine million premature deaths per year.

Solar Visions is the first volume introducing dozens of India's new solar innovations - many of which are likely to have major global importance - for the world.

The book has been produced in cooperation with InSIC, International Solar Innovation Council, a small but efficient international network of solar energy scientists and activists. It contains a popular narrative about the potential of India's solar energy technologies, and seventeen more detailed scientific articles written by India's renewable energy experts.

The book's forewords have been written by Dr Ajay Mathur and professor Peter Lund. Ajay Mathur is the director-general of ISA (International Solar Alliance), an inter-governmental organization of 120 countries founded to promote solar energy. The establishment of ISA was India's and France's joint initiative. Peter Lund is the professor for advanced energy systems in the Aalto University.

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