After venturing into solar power projects, the UT Administration is now embarking on a unique micro –hydel project to generate electricity in Chandigarh.
The first micro-hydel project in the city is proposed to come up at Diggiyan to generate electricity at its sewage treatment plant.
The UT Administration has already begun process of installing the micro-hydel project at Diggiyan. For this, the UT Administration has sought assistance of experts from IIT Roorkee to work out the details of the project and make it efficiently workable here.
As per the UT Administration’s estimates, the proposed project would cost Rs 60-70 lakh. And once commissioned, it would have peak-day energy generation capacity of 50 KW.
The city’s first micro-hydel project has been proposed to capture energy using the natural flow of water at the sewage treatment plant in Diggiyan. While talking to The Pioneer, Santosh Kumar, Director, UT Department of Environment said, “The micro-hydel project has been proposed at Diggiyan. As per the proposal, the micro-hydel project would generate 50 KW of electricity using the natural flow of water.”
He said, “For the commissioning of the project, we have sought assistance of experts from IIT Roorkee. They have asked to submit the details of water discharge from the treatment plant and same would be submitted to them soon. At present, the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh is compiling the data of water discharge.”
“The project is first-of-its-kind in this region. And, we are making efforts to expedite the work for the installation of city’s first micro-hydel project,” he added. In the recent past, a number of micro-hydro projects have been set up in remote areas mainly in Himalayan region for power generation.
The installations of micro-hydel project are mainly used for providing power to isolated small communities and are also connected to main electricity grid sometimes. Recently, the neighboring state of Punjab has also ventured into the micro-hydel projects for electricity generation.
In the past, the UT Administration has commissioned a number of solar power projects in the city. SPV Power Plant of 50 KWp at Paryavaran Bhawan at Sector 19, 50 KWp Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant at UT Secretariat building in Sector-9 among others have been installed to tap vast solar power potential in Chandigarh. Notably, Chandigarh has no power generation capacity of its own and the city gets power from nearly 28 different central power generation stations in the region.