Delhi’s second solar project inaugurated

Delhi's plans for renewable energy yesterday got a shot in the arm with the inauguration, at the hands of chief minister Sheila Dikshit of a 1-MW solar power plant in Keshavpuram in north Delhi. This is the second solar project to be commissioned in the capital after the solar plant at Thyagaraj Stadium.

According to officials, the plant, built by Tata BP Solar, has more than 5,500 crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic panels that would absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity and feed it to the main grid line of NDPL.

According to an NDPL official the power is clean and green since there was no pollution in generating solar power. He added the panels would last 25 years. He said since there were no moving parts, the panels need no maintenance except dusting and cleaning.

He said the DC power generated by solar panels is converted into AC by inverters and fed into the power grid via transformers. He added the plant was designed to produce 1.58 million units of electricity annually, sufficient to light more than 1,000 homes.

Welcoming the initiative, Dikshit said it was a small though a significant step towards adoption of a low carbon lifestyle to mitigate climate change. She lauded the efforts of NDPL and said the initiative would be emulated by other companies.

According to Deepak Gupta, secretary, ministry of new and renewable energy, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, which had set out a target of generating 20000 MW solar power by 2022, provided the framework for supporting initiatives like the NDPL-Tata BP plant.