In the midst of all the buzz around lethal effects of global warming and enormously high pollution levels, small yet powerful initiatives taken up by residential units such as installing solar panels on rooftops appears as a moment of sunshine.
Six RWAs in the capital — Nizamuddin, Vasant Kunj, Saket, Kalka Garhi Village, Ashok Vihar and Shahdara — have took to producing solar power to run each of their RWA office-spaces. All the six associations have installed solar panels of 1 KW capacity, which produces enough power to run around six fans and tube lights. The move has helped bring down their monthly electricity bills by around 15% to 20%.
The RWAs affiliated to URJA (United RWAs Joint Action), an umbrella body of more than 2000 resident associations in the city, took the step in their campaign for ‘Going Green’. Two of the RWAs — Nizamuddin and Saket — have also started net metering (selling electricity to power grids), which has made it even more cost-effective for the office-bearers.
Only last year the Center and the Delhi government had announced subsidies and incentives for solar rooftop installations. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced a scheme that consumers will get an incentive of Rs 2 per unit of solar energy produced from a domestic rooftop.
Atul Goyal, convener, URJA, opined that it will still take time to become a people’s movement, as solar installations are a costly affair.
He further mentioned that unless the government formulates a policy on the issue, it cannot turn into a revolution of having each domestic rooftop producing solar power. He believes that it is important to create a cost-effective model for it to be adopted on a large-scale.
By Baishakhi Dutta
