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India’s Solar Energy Research: Mapping &

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 India’s Solar Energy Research: Mapping & Comparison with US
and China

Avinash Kshitij, Bikramjit Sinha, Kirti Joshi, Kasturi Mandal and Vipan Kumar

National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), Council of

Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India

Abstract: Although potential of solar energy in India is estimated as nearly 20,000 times more
than the present installed capacity of electricity (137600 MW as in 2005), higher per unit cost
limits its full realization. Research in solar energy is thus a priority area for the country.
Analyses of status of solar energy research using data on publications shows that India is ahead
of countries like China and France in some areas of research and needs to convert these
research findings into internationally competitive low cost solar energy products.

Keywords
Cadmium Telluride, China, Gallium Arsenide, Research Publications, Solar Energy, US

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Introduction
Per capita consumption of energy in India is one of the lowest but it ranks sixth in the world in
total energy consumption (GoI, 2006). Around 90% of the energy requirement is met by fossil
fuels even though India is known to have limited fossil fuel resources compared to global
reserves. The domestic energy demand is fulfilled mainly through imports of fossil fuels
projected as 75% even in 2020. India’s national energy security evidently requires accelerated
development of domestic energy supplies to meet its aspiration of a double-digit economic
growth, energy being critical for its economic development especially in developing countries
(Ebohon, 1996). To reduce dependence on imports of fossil fuel and to provide a sustainable
clean source of energy to its people, India began a solar energy programme way back in 1975.
Recognizing that the country receives around 5000 trillion kWh/year equivalent energy through
solar radiation, the government also introduced different subsidies and schemes to encourage
development and utilization of solar energy (Jebaraj & Iniyan, 2006).

Solar energy can be captured through solar thermal collectors and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.
PV panels have multiple advantages; besides being pollution free, they provide flexibility of
power production from micro to mega watts, in-situ production, portability of production thereby
making it independent of grid based fossil fuel supplies important for geographically remote
reserves. The bottom line in reducing the effective cost per unit of solar energy is to increase the
efficiency of conversion of solar energy to electrical energy and for this is dependent to a great
extent on the type of materials used in the PV cells. Research and development have accordingly
focused on solar cell materials.
This paper maps total solar energy research in India and goes on to a detailed analysis of
research on novel solar cell materials -Cadmium telluride (CdTe) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAs)
that are known to be promising materials for solar cells (Goetzberger et al., 2002. The prime
objectives of the present study are to (i) map the growth of total solar energy research in India
(ii) identify the research institution and (iii) with identify the structure of knowledge network,
collaboration pattern with special reference to the above mentioned two solar cell materials.

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Although some studies are available on soar energy research on specific areas such as on solar
photovoltaic (Vidican et al., 2009) and nano-structured solar cells (Larsen, 2008), however very
few studies are available on totality of solar energy research (Garg & Sharma, 1991), .

Methodology
A significant body of literature uses bibliometrics to study research and technological
development in an organization, a country, at global level, or in any specific research field
(Smalheiser, 2001; Daim et al., 2006; Small, 2006). Bibliometrics incorporates quantitative
methods of analysis using research output (scientific publications), impact (citations) and social
network analysis (SNA).
For the present work, bibliometric data was retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database
for the period 1991-2008.

Vidican et al (2009), search query TS=("solar energy") or TS=(solar same photo*) or TS=("solar
power") or TS=("solar Cell") or TS=(Solar same film) was used to get comprehensive data on
number of publications in Solar Energy,

The bibliometric data included title of paper, author, affiliation, journal, and year of publication.
Country-wise publication was sorted from the collected data. Paper published jointly by authors
from two or more countries has been included in the total publication of each country.
Indian publications on solar cell materials Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) and Galium Arsenide
(GaAs) were further analyzed in regard to author affiliation, collaboration and networking with.
Publication count is equally assigned to all the different collaborating institutions.

Citation data was collected from; the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Conference
Proceedings Citation Index- Science (CPCI-S) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-
Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) were selected. All document type like article, books,
conferences, symposia, meeting, report, monograph, theses and dissertations were covered

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selected Citation of papers is collected till 2009, August. The collaboration networks were
created using Pajek, an open source software.
Results & Discussion
Using the query mentioned in the methodology, a total of 27, 267 records were retrieved from
the WoS database. USA heads the list with a share of around a quarter of the world publications
in solar energy. India is ranked 5th in the list with about 5 per cent share of the global publication
(Table 1). But the difference between rank 1 and rank 5 is very high (20%) compared to that
between rank 5 and rank 10 (2%).
The annual growth of publication in solar energy during 19 shows an increasing trend in leading
countries like USA and China, while in case of India it is showing al most a constant trend after
the little growth exhibited during 2006 (figure 1). If India plans to supplement its energy supply
with renewable energy like solar energy, this is not an encouraging picture as publication is an
indicator of national preparedness in any scientific field.
Table 1 shows National share of global solar energy publication, total count of English scientific
papers (1991–2008) identified in the Science Citation Index. Ranking of countries is based on
their share of publications in the defined field.

Table 1

Country   No.  of  Paper   World  share  (%)   Rank  

USA     6806   24.96   1  
JAPAN     3212   11.78   2  
GERMANY     3090   11.33   3  
CHINA     1711   6.27   4  
INDIA     1325   4.86   5  
FRANCE     1253   4.60   6  
ENGLAND     1090   4.00   7  
SPAIN     1088   3.99   8  
ITALY     865   3.17   9  
AUSTRALIA     794   2.91   10  
Rest  of  The  World   6033   22.13  
Total   27267   100    
 

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Figure 1: The annual rate of publication in solar energy

1991-1998 1999-2008
%
Leading Leadi change
in no. Citatio No. of Total ng in over the
No. of Total of n-per- Public Citati no. of Citation- period
Institute
Publication Citation papers paper ation on papers per-paper
IIT-DELHI 57 195 54 3.42 85 429 69 5.05 49.1
INDIAN ASSOC
CULTIVAT SCI 26 202 24 7.77 52 235 46 4.52 100.0
NATL PHYS LAB 18 171 16 9.50 28 114 24 4.07 55.6
BHU 17 246 12 14.47 19 103 17 5.42 11.8
IIT-MADRAS 16 101 16 6.31 16 70 15 4.38 0.0
IIT-BOMBAY 14 158 12 11.29 16 107 11 6.69 14.3
JADAVPUR UNIV 14 31 13 2.21 20 49 17 2.45 42.9

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 MADURAI
KAMARAJ UNIV 13 47 10 3.62 6 29 6 4.83 -53.8
SRI
VENKATESWARA
UNIV 12 53 12 4.42 12 68 8 5.67 0.0
INDIAN INST SCI 10 53 10 5.30 35 469 30 13.40 250.0

Table 2: Top 10 solar energy research publishing Indian institutions

Public research institutions (universities and national research laboratories) have been critical for
advancement of knowledge that acts as a precursor to technology development. Our study
revealed that universities and national academic organizations dominate solar energy research in
India. The top 10 publishers in solar energy research in India is enlisted in table 2 which is
ranked by the number of articles each institute contributing to the solar energy research during
1991-1998. In the recent period of 1999-2008, however, we can see the relative changes in the
position of these institutes. It should be noted that an article may be authored by many authors in
several different institutions. Therefore, the sum of article published by each institution may be
larger than the total number of article. It can be seen that the largest contributor, IIT-DELHI has
published 57 papers in 1991-1998 and 85 papers in 1999-2008, with about 50% growth in output
including an increase in the number of citation per paper. INDIAN ASSOC CULTIVAT
Science, Kolkata has almost 100% increment in productivity in solar research. But the best
performer was Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore which recorded a massive 250 per cent
increase in total publications accompanied by an in increase in citation per paper from 5.30
during 1991-1998 to 13.40 during 1998-2008. There is no any increase in research productivity
in solar research in IIT-Madras and SRI VENKATESWARA UNIV across the two periods but
citation of publication by IIT-Madras decrease by 30% where as citation of SRI
VENKATESWARA UNIV increase by 2.5%. It is clear from the top institution research profile
that southern part of India has lower focus on solar energy research comparative to northern part
of India. NATL PHYS Laboratory, New Delhi, a constituent laboratory of the Council of

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Scientific and Industrial Research recorded 55% increase in solar productivity but the impact of
research decreases over the period that is evident from the decline in per paper citation.

Nature of collaboration among Indian Institutions

Social network analysis was used to explore structural measures of the overall knowledge
network in solar energy. A network with a value of one is completely centered on one of the
nodes (i.e. this node has links to all other nodes but there are no links between any of the other
nodes) and a network with a value of zero has links that are evenly distributed between all of the
nodes. Collaboration data was gathered from the co-authored paper from different institution in
solar research. Node represents the research institutes/universities, and edges between the nodes
represent the collaboration/linkages between the nodes, and number on the edges represents the
strength of linkages. Darker edges also represent the strength of networks. Size of node shows
the number of research output of particular research institutes/university.

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Figure 2. Collaboration of Indian institution for the period 1991-1998

Figure 2 & 3 shows the collaboration network in solar research amongst the Indian research
institutes/universities. From figure 2 it is apparent that in the earlier period the solar research
network was very sparse. One network was formed around IIT-Delhi, having linkages between
JNTU, BHARAT HEAVY ELEC LTD, JODHPUR UNIV and other institutions. Another
network appeared around INDIAN ASSOC CULTIVAT SCI. There is also a small group of

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network around BHU with several research institutions. However, the network map of 1991-
1998 indicates the involvement of public sector enterprises in solar energy research that is
evident from the joint publications between IIT, Delhi and BHEL.
 

Figure 3. Collaboration of Indian institution for the period 1999-2008

But, the solar energy research network in India has grown stronger with time, both in terms of
new entrants as well as the intensity of collaboration (figure 3). During 1999-2008, connectivity
among the institution shows the strong collaboration among the research institutes. In this period
also, IIT-Delhi has the strongest network collaboration followed by IACS, IISC and ANNA
Univ.

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International collaboration in solar energy research

1991-1998 1999-2008
No. of Citation/ No. of Citation/
Country paper Paper paper Paper
USA 12 29.0 31 20.1
JAPAN 9 13.8 29 7.3
GERMANY 4 54.0 28 12.4
FRANCE 1 25.0 9 13.9
NETHERLANDS 1 4.0 8 15.5
ENGLAND 2 4.0 8 12.1
AUSTRALIA 1 63.0 4 2.0
CANADA 2 75.0 2 1.0
 
Table 3: Some major foreign collaborator in Indian Solar Research
 

Internationally co-authored paper is separated from the collected data by their country of
affiliation. During the period 1991-1998 there are very few joint publications between India and
other foreign countries (table 3). It is needless to mention here that international collaboration is
important for enhancing the research output (Glänzel, 2000). However, international
collaboration in solar energy research has improved recently. Irrespective of the duration, the
three preferred foreign collaborators of India in solar energy research in descending order of their
intensity are USA, Japan and Germany respectively.

Research in novel Solar Cell materials

In the foregoing discussion we have dwelt in brief the scenario of overall solar energy research.
But our interest is on the scenario of research in the emerging areas of novel solar cell materials
as outlined earlier. That is Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) are the two
promising and potential materials for reducing the overall cost of per peak watt solar energy.

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GaAs has high capacity of light absorption. To absorb the same amount of sunlight, it requires
only a layer of few micrometers thick while crystalline silicon requires a wafer of about 200-300
micrometers thick. Also, GaAs has much higher energy conversion efficiency than crystal
silicon, reaching about 25 to 30%. Its high resistance to heat makes it an ideal choice for
concentrator systems in which cell temperatures are high. The biggest drawback of GaAs PV
cells is the high cost of the single-crystal substrate that GaAs is grown on. Therefore it is most
often used in concentrator systems where only a small area of GaAs cells is needed.

Cadmium Telluride, CdTe too has a high light absorptive level -- only a few micrometers thick
can absorb more than 90% of the solar spectrum. It is relatively easy and cheap to manufacture
by processes such as high-rate evaporation, spraying or screen printing. The conversion
efficiency for a CdTe commercial module is about 7. Although very little Cadmium is used in
CdTe modules, extra precautions have to be taken during the manufacturing process because of
its known toxicity.

Figure 4: Research output in new solar cell materials during 1991-2008

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Figure 5: Trend of Indian research output in new solar cell materials during 1991-2008

USA and Japan are well established in Gallium Arsenide based solar photovoltaic research
whereas USA, India and England are growing in Cadmium Telluride based solar photovoltaic
research. In the later area, India is next only to USA, though the gap between the two countries is
huge (figure 4). However, India would like to maintain this lead for the matter of competitive
advantage. More heartening fact is the increasing trend of Indian publication in both the new
areas, though the publication pattern in GaAs is showing an irregular trend (figure 5). Among
both the materials India’s position is comparatively better in CdTe research.

No. of papers in No. of papers

Institute Institute
GaAs in CdTe
BHU 24 IIT 25
IISC 18 NPL 16
CTR ADV
TECHNOLOGY 16 SOLID STATE PHYS LAB 16
SOLID STATE SRI VENTATESWARA
PHYS LAB 14 UNIV 9

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 ANNA UNIV 9 GAUHATI UNIV 8
ALAGAPPA UNIV 8 IACS 8
IIT 8 SHIVAJI UNIV 8
BHARAT ELECT 7 UNIV DELHI 8
CECRI 6 BHOPAL UNIV 6
ISRO 6 CCS UNIV 5

Table 4: Top 10 institutes in term of output in CdTe and GaAs based solar material research (1991-  

The top 10 institutes in both areas of CdTe and GaAs research are enlisted in table 4. BHU has
highest number of publications in Gallium Arsenide research and IITs are at 7th position in top
ten research institute in this area. IISC is on the second position with 18 papers in GaAs area but
it does not appear in the top list of CdTe list. IITs are leading publishers in CdTe research while
NPL holds the second position in CdTe based publication. There is very little foreign
collaboration in CdTe and GaAs based solar technology in Indian solar research. Out of that
USA and Japan are the major collaborator but even those are with very few research
publications.

Conclusions
It has been clear that the trend of research publication in both CdTe and GaAs is more or less
similar with that of total solar energy publication. India, though occupies a prestigious 5th
position in both the fronts (in CdTe research India is in 2nd position), it can not yet match the US.
India’s collaborative research activities, both domestic as well as international appears to poor
whereas research collaboration is identified as important driver of knowledge creation and
transfer (Glänzel, 2000; Vidican et. al., 2009). Collaboration is in fact more important for
emerging areas of knowledge/technology like CdTe and GaAs. Nevertheless, India’s position is
comparatively better than many countries like China and France at least in the two areas of novel
solar cell materials and there is necessity to capitalize on these strengths for competitive
advantage in the era of globalization and cry for clean energy technology. Further, India needs to
strengthen its solar energy research programme if the intention is serious about giving renewable
sources of energy a major share in the national energy mix.

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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Director, NISTADS for infrastructure facilities
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Small, H. (2006). Tracking and predicting growth areas in science. Scientometrics,
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 Page  16  of  22  
 
 Table 2. Top 10 performers in Solar Research in India during the period of 1991-2008.
1991-1998 1999-2008 %
Leading in Leading change
No. of Total no. of Citation- No. of Total in no. of Citation- over the
Institute
Publication Citation papers per-paper Publication Citation papers per-paper period
IIT-DELHI 57 195 54 3.42 85 429 69 5.05 49.1
INDIAN ASSOC
CULTIVAT SCI 26 202 24 7.77 52 235 46 4.52 100.0
NATL PHYS LAB 18 171 16 9.50 28 114 24 4.07 55.6
BHU 17 246 12 14.47 19 103 17 5.42 11.8
IIT-MADRAS 16 101 16 6.31 16 70 15 4.38 0.0
IIT-BOMBAY 14 158 12 11.29 16 107 11 6.69 14.3
JADAVPUR UNIV 14 31 13 2.21 20 49 17 2.45 42.9
MADURAI
KAMARAJ UNIV 13 47 10 3.62 6 29 6 4.83 -53.8
SRI
VENKATESWARA
UNIV 12 53 12 4.42 12 68 8 5.67 0.0
INDIAN INST SCI 10 53 10 5.30 35 469 30 13.40 250.0

Table 3: Some major foreign collaborator in Indian Solar Research

1991-1998 1999-2008
No. of Citation/ No. of Citation/
Country paper Paper paper Paper
USA 12 29.0 31 20.1
JAPAN 9 13.8 29 7.3
GERMANY 4 54.0 28 12.4
FRANCE 1 25.0 9 13.9
NETHERLANDS 1 4.0 8 15.5
ENGLAND 2 4.0 8 12.1
AUSTRALIA 1 63.0 4 2.0
CANADA 2 75.0 2 1.0

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 Table 4: Top 10 institutes in term of output in CdTe and GaAs based solar material research (1991-
2008)
No. of papers in No. of papers
Institute Institute
GaAs in CdTe
BHU 24 IIT 25
IISC 18 NPL 16
CTR ADV
TECHNOLOGY 16 SOLID STATE PHYS LAB 16
SOLID STATE SRI VENTATESWARA
PHYS LAB 14 UNIV 9
ANNA UNIV 9 GAUHATI UNIV 8
ALAGAPPA UNIV 8 IACS 8
IIT 8 SHIVAJI UNIV 8
BHARAT ELECT 7 UNIV DELHI 8
CECRI 6 BHOPAL UNIV 6
ISRO 6 CCS UNIV 5

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 Figure 1: Growth trend of solar energy research publication of selected countries during
the period 1991-2008 (Source: Web of Science)

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 Figure 2. Collaboration of Indian institution for the period 1991-1998

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 Figure 3. Collaboration of Indian institution for the period 1999-2008

Figure 4: Research output in new solar cell materials during 1991-2008

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 Figure 5: Trend of Indian research output in new solar cell materials during 1991-2008

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