Monday, November 17, 2014: Anantapur is one of those few places across India which receives solar radiation of 5.2 kilowatt per square meter per day. By utilising the natural strength of the Anantapur district, Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) has established there a 50 Mega Watt (MW) solar thermal power plant. The plant uses the concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, being one of the first MEIL solar plant in south India.
The company has established this plant through its unit MEIL Green Power Limited (MGPL). It was awarded 50 MW solar thermal power plant as part of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM). The JNNSM target is to set 20,000 MW of grid connected solar power plants by 2022.
The newly initiated plant is spread over 600 acre of Nagalapuram village in Peddavadaguru mandal of Anantapur district with the investment of around Rs. 8480 million. It is the seventh plant set up, the initial six plants were established in Rajasthan and produces 420 MW in all.
The technology used by these plants is still at its emerging state, it is the Parabolic Trough Technology in which series of reflective mirrors are placed in parabolic form troughs along with thin pipe running along the focal point. All that sun energy is reflected to these thin pipes from the mirror surfaces. A Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) running through the pipe absorbs all the heat directed to the pipe up to a temperature of 400 degree Celsius.
The same heat upon pumping reaches the heat exchanger where all this heat moves on to water running around the pipes. The water then gets converted to vapour at high heat conditions, thereby allowing the rotation of turbines to produce electricity. 90 per cent of the sun light which falls on the mirrors get reflected to the tube.
