Saturday 14 December 2013

Gujarat's first solar rooftop project generates 1.2 million units in six months

The state's first roof-top solar energy project in Gandhinagar that started operating this year has so far generated a total of 1.2 million units of solar power.

In the first six months of operations, nearly 260 small residential households participated in the first phase of the project in Gandhinagar with a total generation potential of one megawatt,stated an official release from Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL) which is in-charge of developing and implementing the rooftop solar concept in Gujarat.

To facilitate this partnership, Gujarat Power Corporation has opened a facilitation centre at Gandhinagar where households willing to offer their roof can enroll for an initial assessment of the technical suitability of the rooftops. Till date over 760 KW of residential leases have been signed by the developers with 260 residents in Gandhinagar. The rooftop owners get at least Rs. 3 per unit of energy generated as a rooftop rental. So far, about 3.2 MW of solar rooftopsystems  have already been installed in the state's capital.

"The total installation capacity under the Gandhinagar project is five megawatts. Out of this, four megawatts will be installed on government buildings and a total of one megawatt will be installed on private residential homes. We are now taking this successful program to Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Mehsana and Vadodara in the second phase where we plan to generate 25 megawatt of energy", says Gujarat minister for Energy, Saurabh Patel. 

80 per cent of the capacity for the Gandhinagar Project will be made available from government buildings while the balance 20 per cent of the capacity will be installed on residential premises.

Selected after a competitive bidding process, two experienced companies -Azure Power and Avantha Sun Edison are developing the project inGandhinagar. 

The two companies are now installing and maintaining solar photovoltaic systems on rooftops of homes and government buildings. The solar photovoltaic systems convert direct sunlight into electricity which is fed into the electrical grid.Under this model, the solar power generated by rooftops is sold by Azure and Sun Edison at a competitively determined tariff to Torrent Power - a private distribution company that operates the electricity grid in the capital city.

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