Can marketing gimmicks and hysteria trump over physics and bad economics? It certainly can in India and many other countries. But let’s take India. Consider this: India’s total solar capacity is 40,000 MW. Excluding roof top & off grid, the ground mounted solar is 35,000 MW 🧵

This on-grid ground mounted capacity is spread over 210,000 acres or 850 square kms. For perspective, Mumbai’s land area is 650 square kms. 1.3x! If you fill the whole of Mumbai with solar panels plus an additional 30% of Mumbai, you get 35,000 MW - our current solar capacity

Now consider this. The unsung hero that is Nuclear. If you move all of India’s 22 reactors (7500 MW) to Mumbai, it will fit into just 1000 acres. 50% of Bandra.

So, this gigantic solar capacity must be producing insane amount of power for us right?

Units produced last year by our:
Solar - 50 billion units
Nuclear - 43 billion units

Greater Mumbai’s annual electricity requirement - 21 billion units!

Meaning 40% of India’s total solar capacity is enough for just one city. Solar needs 180x more land to produce 1 unit of power versus nuclear! This may not seem apples to apples because as a ‘hot’ country we need to exploit 300 days of sunshine isn’t it?