Home › PYQs › Environment › Repeat & Gap Sheets › Clean and Nuclear Energy
Clean and Nuclear Energy: asked and not asked.
UPSC has asked 8 of these 25. 4 came more than once. 17 have not come yet. Lock the repeated ones first, then read the rest.
First, the concept
India aims at 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity by 2030 and net zero by 2070. Solar has grown fastest; Rajasthan and Gujarat lead.
Each clean source needs a place that suits it: sun for solar, steady wind for wind farms, big tides for tidal power, hot rocks for geothermal.
UPPCS asks a plant with its place, and which source a site is good for.
🔁 Asked again and again (4)
Tap a year to open that solved question.
Water, earth and sea
New fuels
✅ Asked once (4)
New fuels
- Jatropha · Biodiesel plant that grows on poor land
- National Green Hydrogen Mission · 2023; 5 million tonnes a year by 2030 2026
❌ Not asked by UPSC yet (17)
Items marked 'asked in UPPCS' have already come in the UP state exam, so examiners do use them.
Solar and wind
- Muppandal · Tamil Nadu; a big wind farm asked in UPPCS
- Bhadla Solar Park · Jodhpur, Rajasthan; one of the largest in the world
- Khavda Renewable Energy Park · Kutch, Gujarat; being built as the world's largest
- Pavagada, Rewa, Charanka, Kamuthi · Solar parks: Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu
- Jaisalmer Wind Park · Rajasthan
- PM-KUSUM and PM Surya Ghar · Solar pumps for farmers (2019); rooftop solar for homes (2024)
Water, earth and sea
- Manikaran and Tattapani · Hot springs; Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh asked in UPPCS
- Small hydro · Up to 25 MW counts as renewable asked in UPPCS
- Wave energy at Vizhinjam · Kerala; India's first wave-energy plant (1991)
- Puga Valley · Ladakh; geothermal
- Ocean Thermal Energy (OTEC) · Uses the gap between warm surface and cold deep water; Kavaratti desalination plant
New fuels
- Compressed Biogas (SATAT) · 2018 scheme for bio-CNG from waste
Nuclear power
- Tarapur · Maharashtra; India's first nuclear power station (1969) asked in UPPCS
- Kudankulam · Tamil Nadu; built with Russia; the largest asked in UPPCS
- Rawatbhata · Rajasthan, on the Chambal asked in UPPCS
- Narora · Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, on the Ganga asked in UPPCS
- Gorakhpur (Haryana) and Jaitapur · New plants: Haryana; Maharashtra (planned with France)
⚠️ Narora is in Uttar Pradesh, but the Gorakhpur nuclear plant is in Haryana, not in Gorakhpur (UP). Tarapur, not Kudankulam, was the first nuclear power station.
'Asked' is checked against the solved UPSC questions on this site. 'Not asked yet' does not mean it will surely come.