The evenings are hard

Mounting stress upon India's grid engineers

Solar energy is growing. But in the evening, the sun goes down, and the big users of solar switch back to the grid. Economic growth and changes in the built environment are exacerbating cooling demand in the evening. Grid managers are manfully struggling with this problem of the surge in evening demand, but it is becoming harder to accommodate. The only way out is market prices.

The price of solar energy has dropped handsomely. For every firm, there is an opportunity to cut energy expenses in the day by obtaining solar electricity through some contracting mechanism. But the sun is a