Dear humble Robert.
I have been in the Thar Desert and can personally attest that the sunlight is brutally hot there. I was on the Pakistan side of the desert, just 3 miles frrm the Indian border. visiting tiny remote villages whch already had PV systems installed. The NGO that had done the installations wanted me to check them out to see if they had been installed correctly. I have attached a photo of one of the installations. Everythign had been done correctly except for the tilt angle of the PV module. The had blindly followed directions and had exactly the correct tilt angle for Islamabad, not the Thar desert, which is way south of there. I showed them how to adjust the angle.
In my calculations I uses 5.9 Kw-hours per day of insolation per square meter, rather than the 6.2 in the article which is the max in March. Notice that whoever wrote the article made the very common mistake of calling it Kw per hour instead ot the correct expression. maybe that isw why you were having trouble understanding the article. The major problem with that areaas a large solar power source is that India and Pakistan are always arguing about who should control the Desert, and no invester would put in any money in a war zone. The villages have both small Islamic mosqes and Hindu temples and the people go back and forth between India and Pakistan all the time. They told me they have lived in peace together for centuries.
The villages have a real water problem, all the wells have brackish water for several months in the dry season. The NGO I was working with wants me to come back and introduce the photovoltaic still which will desalanate the water while it makes electricity. However, I have not heard a work from them since I left the Thar Desert so I don't know what is happening.
Sincerely,
Rich