Solar Thermal Federation of India (STFI) is a pan-India body Registered under Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860 Regd. No. S/69506/2010 working towards the larger interest of the industry.
The 3,287,240 sq. km area of India receives solar radiation worth 4,300 quadrillion kcal (5,000 trillion kWh) every year, which is equivalent to 430 trillion kgs. of OIL equivalent. The daily average solar energy incident over India varies from 3,500 to 6000 kcal/m2 with about 2,300–3,200 sunshine hours per year, depending upon location. If this natural and in-exhaustible for energy is captured then a fraction of this energy can be useful to meet all heat and electricity needs.
Low temperature solar thermal systems constitute the major market developed so far largely being solar water heaters. As per figures available from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) until August 2015 cumulative installed capacity of solar water heaters in India was close to 10 million sq.meter.
A 2 sq. metre solar collector area can replace an electric heater of 2kW rated capacity. On an average, it can save around 1,200 kWh of electricity or around 140 liters of diesel/ furnace oil in a year if used for 300 days. Behind ever 1 million sq. metre of installed collector area the peak load shaving achieved is 10 GW.
