Saturday, March 01, 2014: The use of solar energy in India has folded many times and has started to produce electricity that is now powering telecom towers, bank branches, data centres and ATMs, in much power deficient rural India.
Solar energy comes as a rescue to areas that face fickle supply of power or no power at all. With many companies providing equipment for power back-up, but the solar power is the new trend. Solar power producers have confirmed that various sectors are taking along the support from government.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) requirement for telecom companies to use renewable sources of energy for powering 50 per cent of their telecom towers in rural areas is helping.
The respective telecom companies and banks are opting for clean energy and for more reasons, the uninterrupted energy.
Sunil Khanna, president and managing director at Emerson Network Power, said, “We are providing solar inverters of smaller ratings to ATMs. More than ATMs, our concentration is bank branches. At present, the adoption of solar power in the banking sector is at a nascent stage, but it is aggressively picking up,” in a report by the Hindu.
Solar power ATMs are likely to inhabit in Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities in coming days, in the country. Some ATMs are already running on solar energy in rural areas, in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The solar sector has accounted for a decent business potential; as more than banks, various telecom companies have adopted solar energy to power their telecom towers.
Sushil Jiwarajka, chairman of the Omnigrid Micropower Co. Pvt Ltd said, “At present, we are powering more than 20 telecom towers and by April1 2014, the number will go up to 40. From one micro solar power plant site, we are powering three towers of different companies,” in the same report. “We are providing surplus power to banks, schools, petrol pumps and even households in the locality to make our project viable,” Jiwarajka added.
