The City Beautiful will soon have its first solar-powered parking lot for cars and two-wheelers.
Scaling up its efforts to promote solar energy and use the underutilised parking lots to productive use, the UT Science & Technology Department has chalked out a plan to construct city’s first solar-powered parking shed for four-wheelers and two-wheelers at New lake, Sector 42 here.
Earlier, it was proposed to construct a solar cycle stand at New lake but the local authorities has now finalised a project for installation of 500 KWp SPV power plant at the rooftop of upcoming solar power parking shed.
Spread over an area of 3.5 acres, the New lake has been specially created for the people to perform religious ceremonies and rituals like Chhath Puja, Ganesh Chaturthi among others. Thousands of devotees from as far as Zirakpur visit the New lake to perform religious ceremonies.
“Besides being a tourism spot, the New lake is used for performing various religious ceremonies throughout the year. Considering the same, the UT Science & Technology (S&T) Department has decided to construct city’s first solar power parking lot for four-wheelers and two-wheelers at the New lake,” said Santosh Kumar, Director, UT S&T Department while talking to The Pioneer.
He said, “A 500 Kwp solar photo voltaic power plant would be installed at the parking shed to be constructed at New lake. The construction of a solar cycle stand is also proposed at the New lake but firstly, the project of solar power parking shed would be taken up.”
The SPV power plant to be installed at the rooftop would be interactive with the grid system so that the extra power supply could be transferred to the main grid system of the city.
last year, the UT S&T Department had set up a solar-powered cycle stand at Government High School Sector 46 here on an area of 1050 sq. ft to accommodate more than 100 cycles and generate more than 20,000 units of the electricity per annum.
Notably, the solar master plan of Chandigarh, which has been approved by the Centre, has identified the parking lots as a potential place to install solar panels as the panels can be oriented to optimize power production during summer when electricity is most valuable.
Santosh Kumar said, “As per the solar master plan, the roof areas of car parking lots in the central markets of all sectors can be effectively used for solar power generation. The parking lots of Sukhna lake, Rock Garden, Railway Station and other prominent locations of the city are also a good place where solar PV-based power plant can be installed and we are working for such projects now.”
He said, “The department has now planned that more parking lots would be converted into solar energy farms that can generate renewable power.” The Chandigarh’s solar master plan has further suggested installation of high intensity discharge (HID) lamps in parking garage, high rise office, warehouses and industries.