The Chhattisgarh Government in a bid to significantly bring down the cost of power consumption for public utilities such as street lights, it is now opting for Solar Photovoltaic powered street lights across the State.
The project is being implemented by Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA).
Notably, CREDA has also been implementing energy efficient lED lighting projects in the State in the areas of outdoor and indoor lighting. Due to the initiatives of CREDA, many State Government departments have implemented lED lighting projects, officials stated.
In many cases, the departments require assistance from CREDA for implementation of such projects, they stated.
The State’s high-tech administrative capital Naya Raipur already has lED street lights installed.
Notably, after achieving a significantly large solar power footprint across the State, the Chhattisgarh government is now getting all set to also tap wind power in several parts of the State.
CREDA had recently gone for implementation of Wind Resource Assessment (WRA) Programme and subsequent development as per the State government’s and National Institute of Wind Energy ( formerly known as Centre for Wind Energy Technology ) ( C-WET) guidelines in Chhattisgarh State.
Chhattisgarh achieved a total commissioned capacity of 7.1000 MW from Grid Connected Solar PV power projects as on March 31, 2014, according to the 2013-14 annual report of Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The total commissioned capacity of such Solar PV power projects was 4.000 MW as on March 31, 2013 in Chhattisgarh, it stated.
The grid connected power projects were commissioned under Phase-I of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) . A total of 11 projects of 50.5 MW capacity under the ‘migration scheme’ and 26 projects of 140 MW capacity under Batch-I were commissioned during the year across the country.
The JNNSM is a key initiative of the Union government and the State governments to promote ecologically sustainable growth while addressing India’s energy security challenges. The Mission is one of the several initiatives that were part of National Action Plan on Climate Change, it stated.
The JNNSM was launched on January 11, 2010 and the Mission targets included- deployment of 20,000 MW of grid connected solar power by 2022, 2000 MW of off-grid solar applications including 20 million solar lights by 2022, 20 million square metre of solar thermal collector area besides creating favourable conditions for developing solar manufacturing capability in the country and to support R&D and capacity building activities to achieve grid parity by 2022. The Mission is to be completed in three phases, the report stated.
For the first phase of the Mission, the Union Cabinet last year approved a target to set up 1,100 MW grid connected solar plants including 100 MW capacity plants as rooftop and other small solar power plants till March 2013.
In addition, a target of 200 MW capacity equivalent of off-grid solar applications and 7 million square metre solar thermal collector area were also approved.
The Union Cabinet last year had also approved setting up of a large utility scale grid power plants through bundling of solar power with the unallocated thermal power available from NTPC stations and the policy to provide generation based incentive for small grid connected solar power plants, it stated.