Solar plan hits speed breakers

Our earlier post – Some solar facts – needs to be read with this one,  to get a sense of why we have problem meeting our solar aspirations.

Vendors at the Chennai expo on renewable energy organised by the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) quoted between Rs.1.6 lakh and Rs.1.8 lakh, for putting up a 1 KW (kilowatt) domestic rooftop solar power system.

The handing out of the Central Government subsidy has not yet been streamlined. “Several solar power vendors have closed operations over the past year because of losses suffered in not getting the Central government subsidy’’, says K.E.Ragunaathan, solar energy entrepreneurs who started Solkar’s in 1984.

At times poor battery packs are being sold because battery prices have shot up over the past year even though solar photovoltaic panel costs have come down.

Says Mr Ragunaathan “State government levies a VAT (value-added tax) component of 5 per cent on solar power components. Where is the incentive for the consumer to opt for solar inverter, if the regular electric inverter is also taxed at five per cent ? If the tax component is cut or waived, it would bring down the entry price for solar.”

Kerala had last year targeted to move 10,000 households to solar power, with each household accounting for a 1 KW rooftop power system. They reduced the VAT on solar power to one per cent.

Source: ‘The Price goes through the roof’, The Hindu write-up by Karthik Subramaniam

Cross-filed from My Take by GVK

Some solar facts

The Hindu devoted an entire page of  its Sunday edition to solar power, carrying articles that cover nearly every thing  one needs to know to go solar.

It is not as if awareness is lacking. People do see the advantages. And yet most of us remain solar skeptics. Despite govt.  incentives we don’t see a whole lot of people showing enthusiasm for  small rooftop solar plants .  State government offers a generation-based incentive of Rs. 2 a unit. plus Rs.20,000 subsidy, for plants of up to 1 kW. But the rules are still being formulated.

A one-kilowatt peak (KWp) solar photovoltaic plant, without battery, costs Rs. 1 lakh. With the capital subsidy of 30 per cent from the Centre and Rs. 20,000 from the State government , the initial investment will be Rs. 50,000.  Add a battery – costing Rs.50,000 – the cost of solar power to households would be Rs.1 lakh per kw.  Assuming that the plant generates 135 units a month, consumer saves, annually, Rs. 9,315 on power bill. A decentralised solar system should make economic sense,  at least for those who consume more than 500 units in two months.

We publish here some other info gleaned from The Hindu’s solar page.  For those wanting to read all the articles, we give the links at the end of this post.

We treat solar energy merely an alternative energy source, rather that the key to boosting power generation.”Actively promote solar energy as a viable alternative in urban India and not just as a solution to power-deprived rural or remote regions,” says Tata Solar CEO Ajay K. Goel.

SPO (solar purchase obligation) in Tamil Ndu makes it mandatory for certain classes of electricity consumers to get a part of their consumption from solar plants. SPO has been challenged in the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity by the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association.

For large industries, it makes business sense to put up their own rooftop or ground-mounted plants than to buy solar power to meet their SPO. Daimler plant near Chennai has set up a 300-kilowatt (kW) rooftop plant.

Colleges/schools can do the same. B.S. Abdur Rahman University,keen on starting solar courses. is putting up a 150-kW plant. A.M. Jain College in Chennai is working on installing a 1-MW rooftop project.

Over 75 per cent of our solar projects use imported thin-film technology.Thin-films account for less than 15 per cent of the total solar installations worldwide.Thin-films have their specific application, but in India the choice was made not for technological, but financial, reasons.

Small rooftop plants on individual houses are slow in coming. Despite govt. sweetners. Besides generation-based incentive, of Rs. 2 a unit, the state govt. offers Rs. 20,000 subsidy for units with capacities up to 1 kW. But the rules for this are still being formulated.

Muthukadu lake project

IIT-Madras have developed a hybrid solar-powered desalination plant. A solar photovoltaic panel is dovetailed to a power grid or a backup diesel generator that will power up during periods of weak sunshine and at night and keep producing water through a reverse osmosis plant.

The pilot plant produces 2.4 kilolitres a day. Since the system does not use backup batteries, maintenance and operational costs are minimal. Efforts to scale up the pilot plant to provide 1 million litres per day. The project was envisioned to be implemented near Muttukkadu, a few years ago but was shelved due to lack of funds.

At Dharmapuri hospital

A pilot solar plant designed by the institute is used to heat infant warmers at a hospital in Dharmapuri and provide energy required to store vaccines in refrigerators.Stand alone systems are quite useful and stand a competitive chance, especially in remote areas, where transport of diesel to power diesel generators costs a lot,” said Jeevan Das, a research scholar who is working on the Suryajal project.

Gujarat solar model

Launched towards the end of 2010, the Rs. 9,000-crore Gujarat Solar Park, set up on government wasteland in north Gujarat, has already been producing 214 MW,making it the first State to generate such solar energy capacity at a single location.

Stretched to 5,000 acres, from the present 2,669 acres, the Charanka Park, located at a village of Patan district, will generate 500 MW. This will make it Asia’s largest solar farm. Gujarat’s total installed capacity is 605 MW, and projects are operational in 10 districts.The government is looking for more wasteland in north Gujarat’s Banaskantha district for setting up another solar park.

Gandhinagar, being envisioned as model solar city, already has solar rooftop systems ranging from 1 kilowatt (kW) to 150 kW at more than 150 locations. This covers a total of two acres of rooftop area, providing 1 per cent of the total energy consumption in the capital. Also, the new building of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board is completely powered by solar energy

The solar page articles:

Sunny future

Green obligations

No Clouds here

The sunshine state

Good tech getting better

Cross filed from My Take by GVK

Solar power, the cost factor

Commercial tariff for grid power: Rs.6 - Rs.8 per unit:
Disesel generator back-up - Rs. 16 - Rs.18
Solar power - Rs.10 a unit.
So says Solkar Solar MD, Mr K E Raghunathan. He is quoted in media as saying,  some 60 sq.ft space is required for one kW rooftop system, capable of producing 5 units on a fair weather day. 
A solar photovoltaic power plant, with a capacity of one kilowatt, has been up and running for some months at a Kilpauk residence of Mr D Suresh.
He has 10 solar panels; a dual power converter, along with 10 batteries of 100 ampere-hours (AH) capacity each. During day, the power plant lights the house and during night, the converter takes over, drawing power from the batteries. 
Capital cost:  Rs. 2.5 lakh, inclusive of  subsidy of Rs.80,000 provided through the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA). Net cost for consumer: Rs.1.7 lakh.
If someone is planning a study visit to Mr Suresh's  Kilpauk house, I would be interested.
This one can be taken up by OMR Greens.

Tapping Wind/solar power on OMR

A roof-top windmill fitted on Hindustan University campus

 Those of us in Mantri Synergy, and neighbouring Ouranya Bay, Victoria Towers or Bella Tuscany and other OMR communities don't need experts to say we come under 'a wind zone'. We experience it. We also know big wind turbines over 100 metres in height wouldn't work in our place. We could try micro wind turbines, say 15-metre tall, as they plan to do, for powering street lights on ECR. Chennai Corporation is reported to have commissioned a study for tapping wind/solar energy with hybrid models.

 Residents asociations on OMR could put their heads together to explore possibilities for putting in place hybrid micro systems for tapping wind/solar power. So that we could make wind/solar powered common area a reality at Mantri Synergy in two or three years from now.

 Experts reckon that effective solution to energy problem has to be found ,not in the availability of technology, but in reducing its expense and widening it accessibility. The proposed wind/solar powered street-lighting pilot project in Sholinganallur and some parts of ECR could serve as model for us to adopt in Mantri and other communities. Bringing down the cost is a challenge. Initial capital cost is high, but subsidy is available from the central and state govts. OMR residents association (an umbrella body of neighbourhood member associations of apartment owners) could be set up to look into subsidy options and also to work on a model project report for community level renewable energy programme.

 By way of reference material I would like you to watch these video talks: 1) Bunkar Roy on his 'barefoot movement' - 19.08 mins. It is a fascinating study on how a village school in Rajasthan has trained rural women to be solar electrical engineers for electrification of villages, not only in Rajasthan, but also in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and other developing countries from where even unlettered grandmas received technician training for six months in Bunkar Roy's barefoot college.
2) MIT professor Donald Sadoway on the missing link to renewable energy - 15 mins. video talk. He is into developing battery for grid-level storage of wind/solar energy, at the lowest possible cost. The focus of Prof.Sadoway's invention is in bringing down the cost of huge storage battery.

 The photo at the top of this post signifies 'a tip of the wind turbine', to coin a phrase, (like 'tip of an iceberg'), of the work that might well be in process at the university engineering workshop. We could tap their experience/expertise in developing a wind/solar power model for Mantri Synergy.

Tapping solar power at Mantri's, OMR

RamKumar (H-Block) posted this photo in his Facebook page. It is about using the space on the Narmada Canal,Gujarat,for putting up solar panels.

Electing far-sighted apartment owners to helm Mantri Synergy association would help us explore possibilities for creating space to tap solar power within our complex.