Solar power to run telecom towers, agricultural pumps

The government is exploring options of running agricultural pumps and telecom towers on solar power, Union Minster for New and Renewable Resources Dr. Farooq Abdullah said here on Monday.

Dr. Abdullah said that the Punjab and Haryana governments alone had spent Rs. 6,500 crores as diesel subsidy to farmers for running sets to pump groundwater for irrigation.He said that his Ministry was exploring the possibility of using solar power to generate energy to operate these pumps.

Fossil fuel

“Apart from bringing down the spending on diesel subsidy, this would reduce the use of fossil fuel,” Dr. Abdullah said at a meeting organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry on ‘Opportunities and Scope of Renewable Energy in West Bengal'.

Dr. Abdullah also said that his Ministry had invested in a project to run 100 telecom towers on solar power.

“There are 8,000 telecom towers in the country that have generator sets running on diesel….If the project is effective, it will gradually be extended to develop others,” he said.

Important mission

Describing the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission as the “most important” of the eight missions in the National Action Plan for Climate Change, Dr. Abdullah said that expertise had to be found to achieve the mission's goal of producing 20,000 MW by 2022.

Charting the progress of the mission launched in January this year, Dr. Abdullah said that while allocations for projects of 100 MW had already been given, projects worth another 750 MW would be allotted by the end of September.

“The sky is the limit for energy from renewable resources in the country,” Dr. Abdullah said, adding that an estimated 87,000 MW could be generated from renewable energy.

Wind energy

He said that the country had done well in developing wind energy that has a potential of 48,000 MW.

“West Bengal will have to play a major role in the tidal wave energy sector,” he said, adding that a 100 MW demonstration project had already been set up in the Sunderbans. 

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In Bihar, electricity is produced from rice husk

Mumbai: Many villages in Bihar has literally lifted out of darkness with an uninterrupted, self-sufficient power supply, thanks to Gyanesh Pandey, the promoter of Husk Power Systems that transforms piles of discarded rice husk to light up the villages, reports Manu A B from Rediff Business. 

Now, around 50,000 villagers in 120 villages across Bihar and 3 villages in Uttar Pradesh have been benefited by these 'green' power plants.

After resigning his job in U.S., Gyanesh returned to his native home state in 2007 and he teamed up with his friends Ratnesh Yadav, Manoj Sinha and Charles W Ransler to set up Husk Power Systems. 

Their idea was to provide power to villagers who depended on agriculture as their main occupation in a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly manner. 

After research and experiments, the team decided that the most feasible way would be making electricity from rice husk. Today HPS owns and operates 40 mini-power plants (35-100 kw) across Bihar. Through this unique green technology, villages get uninterrupted power for up to 6-12 hours by setting up a plant, which burns rice husk to generate gas to run generators.

For villagers, this cheap and eco-friendly model of generating electricity is a miracle that has transformed their lives. "After 60 years of independence, we got the real azadi (freedom) now," Rambalak Yadav, an excited school teacher from Tamkuha, said.

"Becoming an entrepreneur was an evolutionary process. I had a good life in America. I did not face any problems there, but I always had the feeling that I must do something for our villages. I do not feel I have made any sacrifice. Today, there is hardly anything I do other than work. It gives me the satisfaction no job can ever give," says Gyanesh, who feels India's acute power crisis must be solved efficiently with renewable resources.

The company is set to make profits by the end of this year and plans to light up villages in other states like Maharastra, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Providing electricity to villages across India is just the beginning of Gyanesh's ambitious plan to transform rural India. The company has already taken up the initiative to educate 200 children from Tumkuha. 

republished by RItz
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