Solar plan hits speed breakers

Our earlier post – Some solar facts – needs to be read with this one,  to get a sense of why we have problem meeting our solar aspirations.

Vendors at the Chennai expo on renewable energy organised by the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency (TEDA) quoted between Rs.1.6 lakh and Rs.1.8 lakh, for putting up a 1 KW (kilowatt) domestic rooftop solar power system.

The handing out of the Central Government subsidy has not yet been streamlined. “Several solar power vendors have closed operations over the past year because of losses suffered in not getting the Central government subsidy’’, says K.E.Ragunaathan, solar energy entrepreneurs who started Solkar’s in 1984.

At times poor battery packs are being sold because battery prices have shot up over the past year even though solar photovoltaic panel costs have come down.

Says Mr Ragunaathan “State government levies a VAT (value-added tax) component of 5 per cent on solar power components. Where is the incentive for the consumer to opt for solar inverter, if the regular electric inverter is also taxed at five per cent ? If the tax component is cut or waived, it would bring down the entry price for solar.”

Kerala had last year targeted to move 10,000 households to solar power, with each household accounting for a 1 KW rooftop power system. They reduced the VAT on solar power to one per cent.

Source: ‘The Price goes through the roof’, The Hindu write-up by Karthik Subramaniam

Cross-filed from My Take by GVK

Man in the news at Mantri Synergy

My Mantri Synergy friend and OMR Greens enthusiast Mr Santhakumar (with face-mask)  might curse me for this photo. But then I couldn't readily lay my hands on any  other photo, of the man who has made news at Mantri's. Mr Santhakumar has become a father. His wife gave birth to a baby boy last night (Friday), their first. The mother and child are doing well.
At Mantri's we have been trying to evolve a tradition, of getting parents to plant a sapling whenever we  have a new-born joining our residential community. We planted a sapling - 'shenbegum' - to celebrate the first-born,  at Mantri Synergy's Chakraborthy family, in May 2011. A mango was planted near the swin pool when the Ramkumars  had a son, the second child  to be born in our community.
We could have yet another sapling at Mantri's to celebrate child-birth,  if we can persuade Mrs Santhakumar to do the honours.

Sunday clean-up : Akkarai beach

Social activist Rajeshkanna emailed these images of the Akkarai beach on ECR his volunteer friends plan to tackle this Sunday (May 12). His friend Suresh Kumar  SMS-ed that 50 plus volunteers - mostly from TCS, HCL and Wipro - have already signed up for the two-hour beach cleaning drive. Akkarai beach this Sunday evening seems to be the place to be in, if you want to make a social statement with your presence; if you wish to be seen, and interact with like-minded enthusiasts with environmental concerns.
Remember Rajeshkanna ? When OMR Greens organized a Padur Walk Rajesh, with his wife and three-year-old daughter, played a pro-active role sticking placards at Padur street-corner and spreading the message,  word-of-mouth, among passers-by who cared to give him a hearing.
Rajesh and wife have been leading the Akkarai beach clean-up drive every Sunday evening since March 23. They started with a handful of children from their apartment complex in Sholnganallur.  From the second weeks more children, with parents joined in, with trash bags and gloves, to get rid of a small, but demonstrative, stretch of the beach, of its litter of plastics. The clean-up is carried out, Sunday evening - 4.30 p m till 6.30, when the beach is filled with visitors.
With their beach clean-up drive Rajeshkanna and his band of volunteers have been able to persuade the Chennai Corporation to place trash bins at strategic points on the beach.
Sunday Plan:
May 12 beach clean-up takes place on Akkarai, Shyamala Garden Avenue Road. Nearest bus stop: Water Tank stop on ECR.
Time - 4.30 pm till 6.30 p m
Volunteers can send SMS 9884244423/9884244483 or email rajeshreshi@gmail.com.
Contact Suresh Kumar 9843677487

Some solar facts

The Hindu devoted an entire page of  its Sunday edition to solar power, carrying articles that cover nearly every thing  one needs to know to go solar.

It is not as if awareness is lacking. People do see the advantages. And yet most of us remain solar skeptics. Despite govt.  incentives we don’t see a whole lot of people showing enthusiasm for  small rooftop solar plants .  State government offers a generation-based incentive of Rs. 2 a unit. plus Rs.20,000 subsidy, for plants of up to 1 kW. But the rules are still being formulated.

A one-kilowatt peak (KWp) solar photovoltaic plant, without battery, costs Rs. 1 lakh. With the capital subsidy of 30 per cent from the Centre and Rs. 20,000 from the State government , the initial investment will be Rs. 50,000.  Add a battery – costing Rs.50,000 – the cost of solar power to households would be Rs.1 lakh per kw.  Assuming that the plant generates 135 units a month, consumer saves, annually, Rs. 9,315 on power bill. A decentralised solar system should make economic sense,  at least for those who consume more than 500 units in two months.

We publish here some other info gleaned from The Hindu’s solar page.  For those wanting to read all the articles, we give the links at the end of this post.

We treat solar energy merely an alternative energy source, rather that the key to boosting power generation.”Actively promote solar energy as a viable alternative in urban India and not just as a solution to power-deprived rural or remote regions,” says Tata Solar CEO Ajay K. Goel.

SPO (solar purchase obligation) in Tamil Ndu makes it mandatory for certain classes of electricity consumers to get a part of their consumption from solar plants. SPO has been challenged in the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity by the Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association.

For large industries, it makes business sense to put up their own rooftop or ground-mounted plants than to buy solar power to meet their SPO. Daimler plant near Chennai has set up a 300-kilowatt (kW) rooftop plant.

Colleges/schools can do the same. B.S. Abdur Rahman University,keen on starting solar courses. is putting up a 150-kW plant. A.M. Jain College in Chennai is working on installing a 1-MW rooftop project.

Over 75 per cent of our solar projects use imported thin-film technology.Thin-films account for less than 15 per cent of the total solar installations worldwide.Thin-films have their specific application, but in India the choice was made not for technological, but financial, reasons.

Small rooftop plants on individual houses are slow in coming. Despite govt. sweetners. Besides generation-based incentive, of Rs. 2 a unit, the state govt. offers Rs. 20,000 subsidy for units with capacities up to 1 kW. But the rules for this are still being formulated.

Muthukadu lake project

IIT-Madras have developed a hybrid solar-powered desalination plant. A solar photovoltaic panel is dovetailed to a power grid or a backup diesel generator that will power up during periods of weak sunshine and at night and keep producing water through a reverse osmosis plant.

The pilot plant produces 2.4 kilolitres a day. Since the system does not use backup batteries, maintenance and operational costs are minimal. Efforts to scale up the pilot plant to provide 1 million litres per day. The project was envisioned to be implemented near Muttukkadu, a few years ago but was shelved due to lack of funds.

At Dharmapuri hospital

A pilot solar plant designed by the institute is used to heat infant warmers at a hospital in Dharmapuri and provide energy required to store vaccines in refrigerators.Stand alone systems are quite useful and stand a competitive chance, especially in remote areas, where transport of diesel to power diesel generators costs a lot,” said Jeevan Das, a research scholar who is working on the Suryajal project.

Gujarat solar model

Launched towards the end of 2010, the Rs. 9,000-crore Gujarat Solar Park, set up on government wasteland in north Gujarat, has already been producing 214 MW,making it the first State to generate such solar energy capacity at a single location.

Stretched to 5,000 acres, from the present 2,669 acres, the Charanka Park, located at a village of Patan district, will generate 500 MW. This will make it Asia’s largest solar farm. Gujarat’s total installed capacity is 605 MW, and projects are operational in 10 districts.The government is looking for more wasteland in north Gujarat’s Banaskantha district for setting up another solar park.

Gandhinagar, being envisioned as model solar city, already has solar rooftop systems ranging from 1 kilowatt (kW) to 150 kW at more than 150 locations. This covers a total of two acres of rooftop area, providing 1 per cent of the total energy consumption in the capital. Also, the new building of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board is completely powered by solar energy

The solar page articles:

Sunny future

Green obligations

No Clouds here

The sunshine state

Good tech getting better

Cross filed from My Take by GVK

Akkarai clean-up continues

 Rajeshkanna and his group - V R Volunteers ( 'V' for 'we'; 'R' for 'are') have been at it for the past six Sundays  - cleaning a patch of the Akkarai (Sholinganallur beach) of plastic bags, can, bottles and containers. Next Sunday, May 12, they have bigger plans; and to make a success of it, they invite others to join them  - company staff, school and college students, NGOs.
Programme

Sunday, May 12
4:30 PM - Volunteers meet at Akkarai Beach - Shyamala Garden Avenue Road; collect their trash bags/gloves.
4:45 PM - Split into two groups, starting the Cleanup drive from both the ends of 1 km stretch of the beach.
6:15 PM - Collection of trash bags, to be dropped at the chennai corporation garbage hold at the end of the road. 

 Social network:
https://www.facebook.com/events/516750975027928/?context=create

 Contacts: Suresh - 9843677487;  Jai Ganesh – 9791050514

Phone-in breakfast service on OMR

Youngster Vijay Vasudevan, a Mantri Synergy resident, with friends from a local catering institute, runs breakfast service for the benefit of office-goers in a hurry, and housewives who want take it easy on odd mornings, notably weekends. They can phone Vijay for breakfast,and it will be delivered, neatly packed, at their door-steps within a reasonable time.
A catering institute graduate, I believe his name is Gyanam Master, takes care of the kitchen.. It is a co-operative enterprise. They have taken space at  Padur, , where Gyanam Master with assistance from a couple of catering students, runs the kitchen. Vijay takes orders on phone and handles customer service. A couple of students on vacation have been engaged as delivery boys.
On offer at Vijay's breakfest service are Idli, pongal and vada, with sambar and chutney. Service is open 7 a m till 10 a m on all days. Vijay's phone-in service covers Padur-Kelambakkam stretch on OMR.
 Phone 9176509312

Padur lakeside needs 'Namma Toilets'

Our apartments complex - Mantri Synergy - viewed from the lakeside, Padur. Photo by Balakrishnan, a Mantri resident and OMR Greens member.

Neighbourhood  residents on a recent Photowalk  along Padur Lake  were struck by the scenic settings, and its potential for development into a prime recreational area,  to serve the cluster of high-rise residential communities that have come up on  Padur-Kelambakkam stretch.

Families living in  Akshaya's, ETA Rosedale,  Mantri Synergy, X S Real,  The Jains, The Gem Group and Poorvankara wouldn't have to look any farther than their backyard for Sunday picnicking. A paved walkway, joggers track,  lakeside picnic areas, and open-air performance stage would account for high value social infrastructure.

Govt. funding would be hard to come by  for  such big ticket social infra-project. We could try a partnership model involving all stakeholders in lake area development - residents,  property developers, corporates with CSR budget, panchayat,  local town-planning authorities, urban development and tourism depts. Stakeholders share the project cost. We could try crowd-funding.

Maybe  OMR Greens are into big-ticket dreams,  triggered by their  Padur Lake Photowalk. Maybe, other neighbourhood  residents and photo enthusiasts should take to  photowalk , to explore the lakeside further and  talk about it in the social media. To start with,  let us open a Padur Lake plan page on Facebook.

Any lake development plan at Padur, we reckon, must start with provision of clean bank of public toilets along the lake. Their need would be evident for anyone who takes an early morning lakeside walk. That is when you find many people moving about behind the bushes around the lake.

Padur has recently acquired Nilgiris - air-conditioned super-mart - but, apparently, there are still houses in its neighbourhood with no proper toilets. Influx of migrant workers seeking rented houses for group-living adds to the pressure, driving  many residents to the bushes in the morning. Lakeside public toilet is a crying need, and no lake improvement plan can be implemented without fulfilling the basic need of people in the vicinity.

Photo  from ChennaiOnline

Namma Toilet, of the type that has been built at Tambaram,  appears to hold a solution to the problem of public defecation around  Padur Lake.  According to Tambaram municipal commissioner, a 'Namma Toilet' unit costs nearly Rs.70,000. A prefabricated modular stall, 'Namma Toilet'  can be assembled at the site.
Sanitation specialist Somya Sethuraman, writing in The Hindu, speaks of the need for a collective effort to create a user-friendly design, which would cater to the needs of all kinds — men and women, children, the elderly, and residents with special needs.

Somya writes: "The toilets have louvres on all four sides and a sunroof to allow for optimal ventilation, natural light and a feeling of openness without compromising user privacy. The fittings and fixtures are vandal resistant, durable and user-friendly. Each toilet stall is powered by a solar panel installed on the roof. During the day, the toilets get sunlight while the solar panels charge the battery, and when it is dark, the stalls are lit with motion sensor lighting".

A bank of five toilets by Padur lakeside would cost Rs.5 lakhs. If this could raised by way of crowd-funding and corporate CSR contribution,  OMR Greens can be said to have taken a baby step towards their big-ticket social infrastructure project that would benefit emerging residential communities on Padur-Kelambakkam stretch of OMR.

Padur lakeside photowalk, video by Soman Panicker